Law note · Germany
Jugendmedienschutz-Staatsvertrag (JMStV, Interstate Treaty on the Protection of Minors in the Media), Sections 12-12b, operating system youth protection device (Jugendschutzvorrichtung)
Requires providers of operating systems commonly used by children and adolescents, as determined by the KJM, to equip their systems with a youth protection device (Jugendschutzvorrichtung) that can be activated, deactivated and adjusted in a simple, easily accessible and secured way and in which a child's age can be set.
Once an age is set, the operating system must restrict browsing to search engines with a secured search function, allow app installation only from distribution platforms whose apps carry a machine readable age label from a KJM recognized automated rating system, and make only age appropriate apps usable unless individually unlocked by the parent.
Under Section 25 these duties apply one year after the KJM publishes its determination of the covered operating systems, which is itself due within one year of the treaty's 1 December 2025 entry into force, so at the latest from 1 December 2027, extended to at most three years for operating systems in a current or completed production cycle, with non updatable systems on devices already sold exempt.
Primary source: official consolidated treaty text published by the German state media authorities (die Medienanstalten)