Law / Iceland

Lög um fjölmiðla nr. 38/2011, Protection of Minors and Video-Sharing Platform Age Verification

Lög um fjölmiðla nr. 38/2011 (Media Act), 28. gr. og V. kafli A (36. gr. a-d), eins og þeim var breytt með lögum nr. 27/2024

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 since 23 March 2024.

An adult content age verification (AV) rule binding private bodies.

As of 6 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.

Article 28 bars a media service provider that distributes audio or video content from distributing content, including commercial audio or video communications, that could have a harmful effect on a child's physical, mental, or moral development, in particular pornography or gratuitous violence, subject to watershed-hour, technical-restriction, and news-content exceptions for linear programming.

Since Act No. 27/2024 transposed the revised Audiovisual Media Services Directive as incorporated into the EEA Agreement by EEA Joint Committee Decision No. 337/2022 of 9 December 2022, a video-sharing platform provider established in Iceland or directing content to the Icelandic public must, under the new Article 36.a, take appropriate measures to protect children from content, user-generated content, and commercial communications that could harm their physical, mental, or moral development, and, under Article 36.d, must among other things establish and operate an age-verification system for users with regard to content that could harm a child's physical, mental, or moral development, alongside a flagging system, a user-controlled parental-control system, and media-literacy measures.

The Media Commission enforces both duties with administrative fines of up to ISK 10,000,000, and may not process a child's personal data collected under the parental-control or age-verification measures for commercial purposes such as direct marketing or profiling.

If you get it wrong

Private right of actionNo

Penalty structure

Article 54 lets the Media Commission impose an administrative fine of up to ISK 10,000,000 on a media service provider or, as the case may be, a video-sharing platform provider for a violation including Article 28 paragraphs 1 to 3 and Article 36.a (protection of minors from harmful content) and Article 36.d paragraph 1 (duties of video-sharing platform providers, which include the age-verification system at letter g).

Rule
Fixed only
As of
6 September 2026
Currency
ISK
Fixed cap
10,000,000

Who enforces it

Enforcement body

Fjölmiðlanefnd (the Media Commission), Iceland's independent media regulator.

What it reaches

Obligation class

Age verification, Content labelling

When LexLint raises it

  • publishes_adult_content
  • operates_social_platform
  • serves_minors

Read the law

Althingi official consolidated-law database

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