Benin

National jurisdiction · as of 2026-09-04

Benin has not enacted an adult-content age-verification, social-media minor-access, app-store age-verification, or age-appropriate design code statute.

Benin's Digital Code (Loi n°2017-20) criminalizes facilitating a minor's access to pornographic content and the production, transport, or distribution of violent or pornographic material likely to gravely offend human dignity or to incite a minor into physically dangerous conduct (Art. 520), and separately criminalizes soliciting or corrupting a minor, and child pornography offenses, over a computer system or electronic communication network (Art. 518, 519, 521, 522); these are content and offender-focused criminal offenses rather than an age-verification or age-gating duty imposed on an online service, and none of them requires a service to verify a user's age before granting access.

Benin's general child-welfare statute, Loi n°2015-08 du 23 janvier 2015 portant Code de l'Enfant, defines a child as any human being under eighteen years of age, but it is a general child-protection code rather than an age-gating or age-verification duty addressed to a digital service. No numbered bill, Journal Officiel citation, or public draft text proposing an age-verification or age-appropriate design regime was located.

Separately, the Digital Code's data-protection Book requires a minor under sixteen's own consent, or their parent's or guardian's consent, before processing their personal data in connection with an information-society service offered directly to them, but that is a data-protection safeguard the Digital Code's Livre V creates, rather than an age-verification duty on a service.