Children’s consent GDPR Art.8 - Member State differences

Table showing the age below which parental consent is needed (and above which the child’s consent is acceptable) for the offer of information society services (i.e. online services) directly to a child, where the legal basis is consent:

Age	Member State
13	Belgium,  Denmark,  Estonia,  Finland,  Latvia,  Malta,  Portugal and  Sweden (and  UK, but we don’t count anymore ☹)
14	Austria,  Bulgaria,  Cyprus,   Lithuania,  Italy and Spain
15	Czech Republic,  France and  Greece
16	Croatia,  Germany,  Hungary,   Ireland,  Luxembourg,  the Netherlands, Poland,  Romania and  Slovakia

These differences are allowed by the GDPR, but the Commission’s Staff Working Document, accompanying its 2-year evaluation ofthe GDPR, comments that “Such differences lead to situations where the Member State in which the controller is established provides for another age limit than the Member States where the data subjects are residing.” You can say that again!

Note: the table above is based on the helpful info provided in the SWD, p.17, and hasn’t been independently confirmed. No info on Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway was provided in the SWD – presumably because they’re EEA, not EU.