Brazil: Senate adopted Bill on protection of children and adolescents in digital environments (PL 2628/2022) including content moderation obligations

On 27 August 2025, the Senate adopted the Bill on the protection of children and adolescents in digital environments (PL 2628/2022). The Bill outlines principles for the use of digital products and services by minors, requiring that their use be guided by protection, the primacy of their interests, recognition of their developmental stage, and safeguards against intimidation, exploitation, abuse, threats and violence. Products and services directed at or accessible to this age group must also comply with duties of prevention, protection, information and security, in line with existing legislation such as the Consumer Protection Code and the Child and Adolescent Statute. Providers must adopt preventive and mitigating measures from design through operation to reduce risks of exposure to sexual exploitation, violence, harassment, harmful behaviour, gambling, substances prohibited for minors, predatory or deceptive advertising, and pornographic content. Specific restrictions apply to digital advertising. Under Articles 22 and 23, profiling, emotional analysis, and immersive technologies such as AR or VR cannot be used to target minors, and monetisation or promotion of content portraying them in eroticised or sexually suggestive ways is prohibited. The Bill also establishes reporting and takedown duties. Providers must report indications of sexual exploitation, abuse, kidnapping or grooming to the competent authorities, nationally and internationally. They must also provide mechanisms for reporting violations of minors’ rights and remove infringing content once notified by victims, their representatives, prosecutors or authorised child protection organisations, without requiring a court order. Finally, the Bill introduces transparency and accountability obligations. Providers with more than one million registered child or adolescent users in Brazil must publish semi-annual reports in Portuguese, covering complaint handling, moderation measures, detection of child accounts and illegal acts, improvements in data protection and parental consent processes, and risk assessment results. Providers are further required to prevent abuse of complaint mechanisms for censorship, persecution or other illicit purposes.