Ordonnance n°0011/PR/2026, protection des mineurs sur les réseaux sociaux
Ordonnance n°0011/PR/2026 art. 14, 16-24 et 53 (protection des mineurs), du 26 février 2026 portant réglementation de l'usage des réseaux sociaux
A citation is an address, not a summary. The first part names the law; what follows narrows it to the exact section, article or paragraph.
In force 5 months, effective 8 April 2026.
A social media and minors rule binding private bodies.
As of 4 September 2026.
What this law does
Drafted with AI from the cited sources under the direction of UnGovr staff. UnGovr holds editorial responsibility for this page.
Ordonnance n°0011/PR/2026 sets Gabon's digital age of majority at sixteen and prohibits creating an account or profile on any online communication service, social network, or digital platform for a minor under that age, with a narrow carve-out for online encyclopedias, educational, cultural, or scientific directories, free and open-source software development and sharing platforms, and pedagogical content consulted at school with a teacher's supervision and the parent's express consent.
The person holding parental authority is liable for what a minor under sixteen does on a social network or platform in their charge, and that person may have data about the minor erased.
Pornographic content is barred to a minor under eighteen, and the Haute Autorité de la Communication publishes and enforces a technical référentiel setting the minimum requirements an age-verification system must meet, entrusting technical audits of those systems to itself or to the Autorité de Régulation des Communications Electroniques et des Postes (ARCEP) or another independent body with proven expertise.
Within twelve months of the ordinance's publication, every social-network or digital-platform editor must deploy an effective technical mechanism to verify a user's age at registration.
The editor must block or suspend posting, sharing, and social-interaction features for an account identified as belonging to a user under sixteen unless parental consent is formally registered, disable by default any feature letting an unidentified person contact a minor's account directly, filter out algorithmic recommendation of AI-generated violent, sexual, or psychologically harmful content to accounts identified as minors, and report quarterly on the number of minor accounts detected, blocked, or removed and the verification methods used.
A user's own false declaration of age does not relieve the platform of this duty of reasonable vigilance. An editor must also acknowledge a cyberbullying report or a report of harmful content involving a minor within twenty-four hours and decide and notify the user within seventy-two hours.
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Criminal exposure note
The ordinance's general penalty provisions punish obstructing the Haute Autorité de la Communication's action with up to one year's imprisonment and a fine of 2,000,000 to 20,000,000 FCFA, and a host's or editor's failure to fight illicit content with up to one year and a fine of 5,000,000 to 50,000,000 FCFA; neither penalty is scoped specifically to a failure of the age-verification duty, so no fixed penalty amount is coded here against that duty alone.
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
Haute Autorité de la Communication (HAC); technical audits also confided to the Autorité de Régulation des Communications Electroniques et des Postes (ARCEP) or another independent body
What it reaches
Age threshold
16
Covered services
Online communication services, social networks, and digital platforms allowing account or profile creation; a lower threshold of 18 applies separately to pornographic content
Obligation class
Age verification, Design code, Reporting
Verification methods
Self declaration, Parental consent
Who checks it
Audit expectation
periodic
Who audits it
Regulator, Independent third party
Where the report goes
Published
When LexLint raises it
operates_social_platform
Read the law
Ordonnance n°0011/PR/2026 du 26 février 2026 portant réglementation de l'usage des réseaux sociaux via les plateformes numériques en…
Ordonnance n°0011/PR/2026 du 26 février 2026 portant réglementation de l'usage des réseaux sociaux via les plateformes numériques en République Gabonaise, Journal Officiel de la République Gabonaise n°110 du 8 avril 2026