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Minors and Social Media: Who is Responsible if a Friend Posts Your Photo Without Permission?

Spanish and European regulations protect minors' image rights, establishing responsibilities for parents and platforms regarding unauthorized dissemination.

Image of a mobile phone showing social media profiles with children's photos, held by an adult.
IA

Image of a mobile phone showing social media profiles with children's photos, held by an adult.

The growing presence of minors on social media raises questions about the publication of their images by peers, sparking a debate on rights and responsibilities.

Many parents' concern about their children's exposure online contrasts with the reality that minors, at increasingly younger ages, use mobile phones and share moments of their lives on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, or WhatsApp. This means that, even without direct parental involvement, children's images can end up circulating on social media through their friends.
Recent statistics in Spain reveal the scale of this phenomenon. In 2025, a high percentage of adolescents aged 10 to 15 used mobile phones, and over 90% of adolescents were registered on at least one social network. Spain led in daily time spent by minors on these platforms, exceeding an average of one hour and 17 minutes.
This scenario, known as 'horizontal sharenting,' where a minor posts another child's photo without parental consent, raises legal questions about violated rights and responsibility. Minors are holders of fundamental rights such as honor, privacy, and self-image, protected by the Spanish Constitution and reinforced by various regulations.
Legal protection is based on pillars such as Organic Law 1/1982, which considers the publication of images without consent an illegitimate interference; Organic Law 1/1996 on the Legal Protection of Minors, which safeguards minors against publications that harm their honor or interests; and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the LOPDGDD, which treat photo publication as personal data processing, requiring parental consent for those under 14.
Internationally, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and General Comment No. 25 extend these rights to the digital environment. In Spain, a draft law aims to raise the minimum age for social media profiles to 16.
In civil proceedings, the parents of the photographed minor can claim the removal of content, a declaration of illegitimate interference, and compensation for moral damages. The parents of the minor who disseminates the image are responsible for 'culpa in vigilando e in educando' (fault in supervision and education). Criminal proceedings may be relevant if the offending minor is between 14 and 18 years old and the acts constitute offenses such as the revelation of secrets or the non-consensual dissemination of images.
Courts, including the Supreme Court, have established criteria to resolve conflicts between freedom of information and minors' rights, emphasizing that parents' public notoriety does not transfer to their children and that the informational justification for publication must be proportionate and necessary. The European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the EU have also issued relevant rulings on this matter.
Faced with this situation, parents have several avenues: extrajudicially request the removal of content from the minor and their parents, notify digital platforms, file claims with the Spanish Data Protection Agency, initiate civil protection actions, or even file criminal complaints if applicable. The right to be forgotten can also be exercised against search engines.
The enhanced protection of minors in the digital environment is an operative legal principle. 'Horizontal sharenting' adds the responsibility of the parents of the minor who posts, and they must be aware of their duty of supervision and education to prevent the unauthorized dissemination of other children's images.

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