Mexico sets 30 days to report child safety measures

Mexico has published a decree on safe digital environments for children and teenagers, and set a maximum 30-day period for digital platforms to document and report the actions they take to comply with its provisions. The decree took effect on Oct. 14, 2026, according to the Diario Oficial de la Federación, and the first reporting deadline falls on Nov. 13, 2026, according to Holland & Knight's legal analysis.

What does the new rule require?

The decree requires platforms to document and report how they are applying measures to protect minors. Holland & Knight identified several of those measures, including safety by design, stronger default privacy and security settings, parental supervision tools, and steps to address harmful content.

El Economista added that platforms must restrict violent and sexual content, as well as material that encourages risky behavior. N+ also reported requirements for age-based content classification, reporting tools for violent users or content, and features for parents or guardians.

How will children's accounts have to work?

Accounts for minors must include stronger privacy and security settings from the moment they are created, and those settings cannot depend on manual activation by the user, according to Expansión Política. That approach aligns with the safety-by-design framework cited by Holland & Knight.

Holland & Knight's legal analysis also places the start of the reporting obligation on Nov. 13, 2026, based on the 30 calendar days counted from the decree's effective date. The Diario Oficial de la Federación published the decree on Oct. 14, 2026.

What sources describe the regulatory scope?

Local media agreed that the decree is meant to bring order to content moderation and security controls on platforms used by minors. El Economista said seven categories of content are banned for minors, while N+ said age classification, parental supervision, and user reporting are part of the obligations it described.

Lado.mx attributed to the presidential announcement that technology companies had agreed to cooperate with the rules and would have 30 calendar days to adapt their operating and moderation systems. That reference appears as an attribution to the announcement and not as an independent confirmation in the material provided.

Monitoring, scope and possible penalties

The decree does not include its own fines or penalties in its initial version. Oversight of compliance will fall to the Digital Transformation and Telecommunications Agency, which will be responsible for tracking how platforms advance in adopting these measures.

Diario de Morelos said the obligations apply directly to platforms such as Meta, TikTok, Google, X, Microsoft and Apple, and include age verification, parental controls and mechanisms to report dangerous content. El País, according to the interpretation attributed to comments by Luisa María Alcalde, said the decree applies to everyone under 18.

Expreso also said the government could push for a law with penalties if platforms do not comply, although that path is not part of the published decree. Under the current text, the 30-day deadline remains in place for documenting and reporting the measures adopted, while any punitive regime would be left to a possible later law.