Poland
National jurisdiction · as of 2026-09-06
Poland's Broadcasting Act restricts and labels content harmful to minors rather than running an age-verification regime as such.
Article 18 bans broadcasting programmes and other transmissions that endanger minors' physical, psychological, or moral development, in particular pornographic content or content that unjustifiedly exposes violence, and confines programmes carrying scenes or content that could negatively affect minors' development, short of that outright ban, to the hours of 23:00 to 06:00, with a graphic-symbol labeling duty for such content throughout its broadcast.
Article 47p, added to transpose the 2018 revision of the EU Audiovisual Media Services Directive, requires a video-sharing platform provider to operate effective technical safeguards, including parental-control systems, protecting minors from user-generated video and other content that could harm their physical, psychological, or moral development, to let users flag and tag the content they upload, and bars using personal data collected for that child-protection purpose for commercial ends such as direct marketing, profiling, or behaviourally targeted advertising.
No statute requiring age verification before access to pornographic content, and no device- or app-store-level age-verification duty, is described here.
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Instruments on record
Ustawa o radiofonii i telewizji, Video-Sharing Platform Minor Protection Duties
In force
Ustawa o radiofonii i telewizji art. 47p (tekst jednolity Dz.U. 2022 poz. 1722)
Applies to private
A video-sharing platform provider must create and operate effective technical safeguards, including parental-control systems or other appropriate measures, protecting minors from programmes, user-generated video, or other content that could harm their proper physical, psychological, or moral development, in particular pornographic content or content unjustifiably exposing violence, and must let a platform user classify the programmes, user-generated video, or other content they upload and apply those same technical safeguards to it.
Personal data of minors collected or otherwise generated by a video-sharing platform provider for this child-protection duty may not be processed for commercial purposes such as direct marketing, profiling, or behaviourally targeted advertising, or otherwise used for those purposes in supplying that platform, another video-sharing platform, or a media service.
| Verification methods | parental consent, self declaration |
| Enforcement body | Krajowa Rada Radiofonii i Telewizji (National Broadcasting Council) |
Source: Full text of law
Ustawa o radiofonii i telewizji, Watershed Hours and Content Labeling for Content Harmful to Minors
In force
Ustawa o radiofonii i telewizji art. 18 (tekst jednolity Dz.U. 2022 poz. 1722)
Applies to private
Broadcasting a programme or other transmission that endangers a minor's physical, psychological, or moral development is prohibited, in particular one carrying pornographic content or unjustifiably exposing violence. A programme or other transmission carrying scenes or content that could negatively affect a minor's proper physical, psychological, or moral development, other than the content the outright ban already covers, may be broadcast only between 23:00 and 06:00.
A broadcaster must classify and label such a programme or transmission with an appropriate graphic symbol throughout its television broadcast, indicating that its content could negatively affect a minor's development.
| Enforcement body | Krajowa Rada Radiofonii i Telewizji (National Broadcasting Council) |
Source: Full text of law