Poland Set to Ban Smartphones in Schools

Poland announced it is planning to ban mobile phones in primary schools. The ban would take effect on 1 September and will apply to children aged 7 to 15 on school premises, including during breaks. The proposed bill will also give schools a legal basis to create storage deposits for handsets.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the restriction aims to give parents and teachers more control over pupils’ device use. “We propose a ban on cell phone use in primary schools during lessons and breaks. This is not a perfect solution; we have no illusions about that, but we must address this serious problem, which is addiction to phones and the internet”.

Another bill proposed by Poland’s minister for digital affairs also imposes new obligations on pornography websites to restrict access by children. Poland’s proposals come as social media platforms face mounting scrutiny over child safety across the globe.

In stepping up efforts to keep young people from online harm, Meta announced it is expanding its 13+ content settings for teen accounts on Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger globally. The controls were initially launched in select countries in October last year and are designed to filter out content deemed inappropriate for underage users as the default for teenagers’ accounts.

A more restrictive limited content setting will also be made available on Facebook and Messenger later this year. In addition, Meta’s Instagram platform is also testing a feature to prevent teenage users from repeatedly seeing certain types of content to promote a more balanced social media feed.