Türkiye issues presidential circular on children’s empowerment in the digital world

Presidential Circular No. 2026/2, published in the Official Gazette on 3 February 2026, is Türkiye’s five-year Action Plan for the Empowerment of Children in the Digital World (2026–2030), a national policy framework prepared under the coordination of the Ministry of Family and Social Services.

The Circular represents Türkiye’s adoption of a national strategic framework to protect and empower children in digital environments as online platforms, digital services and emerging technologies play a growing role in children’s daily lives.

The Action Plan reflects key international child rights instruments, including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Council of Europe’s framework instruments on children’s rights in the digital environment and General Comment No. 25 of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on children’s rights in the digital environment.

Scope and structure

The Action Plan establishes a comprehensive national policy framework, which is intended to ensure that children are protected from digital risks and receive the benefits of digital technologies safely and effectively. It adopts a rights-based multi-stakeholder approach and addresses the impact of digitalisation on child development, well-being, privacy and participation.

Instead of focusing solely on risk prevention, the Action Plan emphasises the importance of empowering children through digital literacy, critical thinking and responsible digital citizenship. In this context, children are not merely passive recipients of protection but active participants in the digital ecosystem whose well-being and development must be supported alongside protective measures.

The Action Plan is structured around four strategic objectives and twelve strategic targets, each supported by defined implementation activities, designated responsible institutions and measurable performance indicators, reflecting its operational and implementation-oriented structure.

The strategic objectives include:

• Awareness and capacity building: To increase awareness and digital literacy among children, parents, educators, professionals working with children and society at large by promoting the safe, responsible and informed use of digital technologies, strengthening digital citizenship skills and improving understanding of digital risks, rights and responsibilities.
• Development of preventive and protective mechanisms: To develop and promote child-friendly, safe and accessible digital environments, applications and content, while strengthening preventive and protective measures designed to reduce children’s exposure to digital risks and harmful online practices.
• Strengthening intervention and support mechanisms in response to digital risks: To strengthen early detection, intervention, counselling and psychosocial support mechanisms for children exposed to digital risks with an emphasis on timely, accessible and child-sensitive responses.
• Strengthening the legal and institutional framework: To reinforce legislation and institutional structures to ensure that regulatory approaches keep pace with technological development and reflect a child rights-based perspective in the digital environment.

The Action Plan explicitly refers to social network providers and access providers within the scope of its preventive and protective mechanisms. In this context, social network providers should contribute to children’s safe digital experiences and engage in awareness-raising and information activities. The Action Plan calls for active participation and cooperation from private sector stakeholders, including social network providers, access providers and digital service providers, particularly in awareness, safety and digital literacy initiatives. While the Action Plan does not establish directly binding legal obligations for private sector entities, it sets out policy objectives and expectations that may inform future regulatory or legislative initiatives and signals a clear policy direction towards increased involvement of social media platforms and online service providers in child online safety initiatives. This approach may serve as a basis for future legislative or regulatory measures affecting digital platforms operating in Türkiye.

The Action Plan envisages coordinated implementation by multiple public institutions, including monitoring, evaluation and reporting to ensure its effectiveness throughout the 2026 - 2030 period. Under the Circular, the Ministry of Family and Social Services has been designated as the authority responsible for inter-institutional coordination, with the General Directorate of Child Services overseeing implementation. Public institutions and organisations assigned responsibilities under the Action Plan will be required to report their activities through a web-based digital monitoring system that the Ministry will develop.

Conclusion

The Circular marks an important policy step towards a more coordinated and structured approach to protecting and empowering children in the digital world. While the Circular does not introduce direct obligations for private entities, it sets out a clear policy direction to inform future legislative and regulatory initiatives for digital services and online environments accessible to children.

For more information on the Circular and its potential implications for social network providers and access providers in Türkiye, contact for CMS client partner or the experts who wrote this article: alican.babalioglu@ybk-av.com , melis.celik@ybk-av.com , and ezgi.bahar@ybk-av.com.