Timor-Leste

National jurisdiction · as of 2026-09-07

Timor-Leste has no adult-content age-verification law, social-media minor-access restriction, app-store age-verification requirement, or age-appropriate design code as of the date below. The Lei da Comunicação Social (Law No. 5/2014 of 19 November) defines a media organ as the vehicle enabling regular dissemination of journalistic activity in printed or electronic form.

Article 4(f) of that law bars a media organ from identifying a victim of sexual abuse or a minor offender, a reporting restriction rather than a duty to verify a user's age or restrict a minor's access to content.

Law No. 6/2023 of 1 March, on the Protection of Children and Young People in Danger, provides in Article 70 that a media organ reporting on a child or young person in danger may not identify them or transmit elements, sounds, or images enabling their identification, again a reporting restriction rather than a duty to verify a user's age or restrict a minor's access to content.

The Penal Code (Decree-Law No. 19/2009), Articles 175 to 178, criminalizes child prostitution, child pornography, and sexual abuse of a minor. Each of those articles binds any person rather than a private online service, publisher, platform, broadcaster, or distributor as such. Law No. 5/2026 of 10 April 2026 regulates the adoption process and amends the Civil Code, and contains no provision addressing an online or media service.

Decree-Law No. 12/2024 on Electronic Commerce and Electronic Signatures sets technology-neutral rules for online contracts and digital authentication; no minor-consent or age-verification provision in it has been located.