Parental consent for children's contest entries in Greece: what an organiser must collect
Parental consent for children's entries in Greece comes from the person holding parental responsibility, under the data authority's line for children under 16. A 2019 In.gr report put the line at 15, and the checked texts do not settle which figure a contest should apply. Separately, publishing a minor's image on social networks requires the consent of both parents, according to a Greek legal news site. The checked texts name no organiser's own consent wording, so the page quotes none.
Rechecked on 22 October 2026.
The Authority's 16 line and the 2019 report's 15 line differ.
The Hellenic Data Protection Authority's statement is the only official text among the checked texts that sets a consent line for children. The line governs the handling of a child's personal data, and the page does not stretch it to entry itself. A child under 16 cannot have their personal data handled without that consent.
The 2019 In.gr report gives 15. It describes a rule under which minors under 15 would need their legal representatives' consent before their data could be processed. A press report describes a rule without quoting its text, so the 15 figure cannot be checked against the rule's wording here.
The gap matters for a 15-year-old. The Authority's line still requires a parent's consent, while the 2019 report's line would not reach that child. The checked texts do not say which line a contest should apply, and the page does not choose between them.
The texts state each line by age and do not say on which date the age is counted: the entry date, the closing date or the date of the draw. The page does not guess which date a contest would use.
Publishing a minor's image on social networks needs both parents' consent.
Lawspot, a Greek legal news site, reports the photo rule in a piece dated 1 July 2026. Its wording is that publishing a minor's image on social networks requires the consent of both parents. The rule concerns publication, which is a different act from collecting an entry form.
For a contest, the practical case is a child's photo posted by the organiser, or shared from an entry. The report says both parents, not one. A single parent's signature therefore does not meet the rule as the report states it, and an organiser cannot treat one signature as enough for a photo.
A checklist for an organiser: three consents to confirm before a child enters.
Start with the child's age, because the two consent lines do not agree at 15. Under 15, the 2019 report points to the legal representatives. Under 16, the Authority's line gives the consent to the holder of parental responsibility. At exactly 15, the lines disagree, and the page does not settle the case.
Then check whether the entry collects personal data from the child. If it does, consent has to come from the holder of parental responsibility under the Authority's line, and the entry form should state that step in the contest's own words. Finally, check whether the contest posts the child's image on social networks, because the photo rule then applies to the post.
- Child's age: under 15, under 16, or 15 where the two lines disagree.
- Personal data collected: consent from the holder of parental responsibility.
- Photo posted on a social network: consent of both parents.
- Entry form: the consent step written into the contest's own terms.
Platform rules and entries by children: what the texts leave open.
The checked texts state no platform's own rule on children's accounts or on entries made from them, so this page gives no platform age line. A platform's account rule and an organiser's consent step are separate questions, and the page keeps them apart.
The texts also say nothing about disqualification. No clause in the checked texts removes an entry because consent was missing, and the page does not supply one. A contest that collects a child's data without the consent its own terms require would have to decide what to do with that entry, and the texts do not say what that decision looks like.
A contest's own terms are the document that would set out what happens to an entry that breaks a consent rule. The checked texts do not include those terms, so the page cannot describe them.
A signed consent form does not prove that a contest is genuine.
A consent form tells an organiser that a parent agreed, and nothing more. It does not show that the contest itself is genuine. The texts say nothing about how organisers verify a parent's signature, and the page does not describe a check it cannot see in them.
Where a child's entry raises a doubt, the checks an entrant can make are narrow. The contest's terms and the consent wording are the two documents to read, and the organiser is the party to ask about any gap between them.
The texts give no test that an organiser can run on a form to confirm that the person signing is the holder of parental responsibility. The page therefore describes no such test, and it names none.
The legal reach of each consent line is left to the authorities.
Of the three texts, only the Authority's statement comes from an official body. The 2019 report and the 2026 report are news accounts of rules, and the checked texts do not quote the rules themselves. That difference in source is why the page treats the two news accounts as reports and not as the law.
Whether a particular contest has to meet these lines is a legal question, and this page does not rule on it. For a specific contest, the question goes to its organiser and to the data authority, and the page leaves it there.
Rules that apply
Greece has three consent strands in the checked texts, and they come from different kinds of text. The Hellenic Data Protection Authority, the country's data protection authority, states the line at 16 for children's personal data. A 2019 In.gr report said minors under 15 would need their legal representatives' consent before their data could be processed. A 2026 report from Lawspot, a Greek legal news site, says publishing a minor's image on social networks needs both parents. None of the three strands names a contest, so an organiser has to read each one against its own entry form.
What we decline
The sources checked for this page are the Authority's statement on data protection, a 2019 In.gr report on minors and their data, and a 2026 Lawspot report on images of minors, all reviewed on 2026-10-22. The page cannot say which consent line a contest must follow for a 15-year-old, because the texts disagree on that age. It does not decide whether a particular contest falls under the data rule or the photo rule, and it never states that a consent step alone makes an entry valid. No platform's account rule is set out here, and the page never explains how to get a child's entry past an age or consent check.
Questions and answers
The checked texts give two consent ages. The Hellenic Data Protection Authority puts the line at 16 and names the holder of parental responsibility as the person who consents. A 2019 In.gr report put the line at 15 for a rule it described as still to come. Separately, a 2026 Lawspot report says publishing a minor's image on social networks needs the consent of both parents. The texts do not say which line a contest must apply, and the page does not choose one.
The Hellenic Data Protection Authority's statement is the only official text among the checked texts that sets a consent line for children. It sets that line for the handling of personal data. The 2019 report and the 2026 report are news accounts, and the checked texts name no official page that covers consent for a contest entry in particular.
No. The checked texts show no separate rule for prize draws, so the consent lines they state cannot be assumed to apply to a draw in the same way. The Authority's line concerns personal data, the 2019 line concerns minors under 15 and their data, and the photo rule concerns publication. Each of the three is about a different act, and none of them names a draw.
The checked texts show no organiser's own wording on parental consent for children's entries, so this page quotes none. The consent lines come from a data authority and from news accounts of the law, not from the terms of any contest. An organiser's own consent step is therefore a matter for that organiser's terms, and the page cannot describe it.
The checked texts name the Hellenic Data Protection Authority as the body that states the consent line for children. They name no body that checks a consent form at a contest. How the data rule is enforced is not described in the texts, and the page does not describe it either.
Yes. The Hellenic Data Protection Authority states the consent line for children under 16 in its statement on data protection. Two news accounts describe rules on children's data and images, and neither is official guidance. The checked texts contain no guide written for contest organisers, and the page does not stand in for one.