The National
Broadcasting Council

The National Broadcasting Council (KRRiT) has for years been carrying out its statutory duties relating to the protection of minors from content that may threaten their healthy development. It supervises providers of on-demand audiovisual media services and video-sharing platforms, conducts market research, monitors the safeguards in place, and provides the European Commission with information on the measures taken by platform providers.

Its many years of regulatory experience and the practices developed in cooperation with the market make the KRRiT a key institution in building an effective system for the protection of minors. The Council remains ready to share its knowledge and experience to ensure that the solutions developed are based on tried-and-tested mechanisms and effectively address the challenges relating to the safety of children and young people spending time online.

Since November 2021, the KRRiT has been carrying out its duties under the regulations implementing the Audiovisual Media Services Directive. In this regard, it possesses expertise on the measures employed by video-sharing platforms, solutions designed to protect children from accessing pornographic content and material that excessively glorifies violence, as well as the results of research into the reception of media services.

For over 30 years, the KRRiT has been consistently developing a system for the protection of minors in the media. The authority has established a practice for classifying pornographic content and material that may pose a threat to children’s development; it conducts proceedings against entities that breach the regulations and issues decisions imposing penalties for the dissemination of content that contravenes the Broadcasting Act.

It is precisely the KRRiT’s approach to classifying content as pornographic that has contributed to the development and consolidation of assessment criteria for this type of content, based on the provisions of the Broadcasting Act. It has also led to a change in the case law of the ordinary courts regarding what is considered pornography within the context of audiovisual services. The Ministry of Digital Affairs took this fact into account when drafting the bill on the protection of minors from access to pornographic content on the internet. In the bill, it envisaged a key role for the National Broadcasting Council (KRRiT) in assessing what should be regarded as pornographic content made available through digital services.

A key element of the system for the protection of minors is the Code of Good Practice on the protection of minors in on-demand audiovisual media services, developed under the auspices of the National Broadcasting Council (KRRiT). The self-regulation of the VOD market, which has been in force for over a decade, ensures a compliance rate of over 99 per cent with the adopted standards for the protection of children.

Signatories to the Code employ effective mechanisms for verifying users’ ages, utilising, amongst other things, electronic identification and online banking. VOD providers, as well as one of the world’s most popular streaming platforms, have joined the agreement, confirming the effectiveness of the model developed.