🇫🇷Children in Content: Earnings, Consent and Safeguards

The concept: what is regulated is not advertising but labour and money

Whenever children and blogging come up, the discussion usually settles on the advertising layer: disclosure of paid integrations, the ban on profiling based on minors' data, restrictions on what a child may be shown at all. That is a separate story, and it is covered in the survey of influencer regulation — there the child appears as the addressee of a commercial message.

Here the question is the reverse. The child is not watching the content; the child is the content: the family vlog, the toy review, the unboxing, the challenge starring a five-year-old. Legally this is not advertising but the work of a child performer, and it is governed by child labour law plus a mandatory withholding of part of the revenue until majority. Different branch of law, different authority, different sanction — and a different addressee of the duty: not the advertiser and not the platform, but the adult who earns money from the child.

That adult has four duties, and none of them is discharged by an "#ad" tag or a disclosure token.

• Permission — authorisation from the competent authority before filming begins, wherever the regime is permit-based.
• Deposit — the child's share goes into a blocked account or trust, bypassing the family budget.
• Records — a log of the child's on-screen minutes, gross revenue and amounts transferred, kept for a long retention period.
• Erasure — the grown-up child's right to demand that material filmed in childhood be taken down.

France: a permit-based model and consignment with the CDC

France was the first to settle the question by dedicated statute. LOI n° 2020-1266 du 19 octobre 2020 (the Studer Act) took effect on 20 April 2021 — article 8 deferred application for six months after publication. Article 1 rewrites L7124-1, L7124-5, L7124-9, L7124-10 and L7124-25 of the Code du travail and inserts a new L7124-4-1: the commercial exploitation of the image of a child under 16 on online platforms is assimilated to the work of a child performer, with all that follows — prior authorisation, working-time limits, medical supervision.

The authorisation (agrément) is granted by the prefect on the basis of preparatory work by the DREETS. The procedure is set out in décret n° 2022-727 du 28 avril 2022: the moral character of the role is assessed, along with the rhythm of engagement during evening hours and across the week, and a medical examination is carried out; the authorisation runs for one year and is renewable. The penalty for operating without a required authorisation is five years' imprisonment and a fine of €75,000; breach of the financial obligations attracts €3,750 (regime as set out by the Ministère du Travail et des Solidarités, checked on 20.08.2026).

Article 3 adds a second, lighter tier — a declaration regime for legal representatives, applicable where a child under 16 is the principal subject of the content and the publications exceed a threshold expressed in duration or number, or a threshold of direct and indirect income. Once the threshold is crossed, the child's income is paid into the Caisse des dépôts et consignations and blocked until majority or emancipation; early withdrawal is possible only in exceptional cases. An advertiser that fails to verify the declaration status before placing a product with a child influencer pays a fine of €3,750 (art. 3, section IV). The version of article 3 in force dates from 11 June 2023, following amendment by loi 2023-451.

Money in the blocked CDC account does not sit idle: the rate is fixed by an annual arrêté. The arrêté of 5 February 2024 set 5.07% a year, but it was superseded by the arrêté of 8 April 2025: the rate now in force is 3.71% a year (JO of 11.04.2025). No later arrêté appears on Légifrance as at 20.08.2026, but the rate is revisited annually and should be re-checked before any calculation. Release at 18 is a procedure, not an automatic transfer: a registered letter followed by submission of documents through the secure Caisse des dépôts portal (the "Enfants influenceurs" section, checked on 20.08.2026). The exact share of revenue subject to consignment, and the split between the parents and the blocked portion for teenagers aged 16 to 18, are set by the implementing provisions R7124-*, whose wording was not verified verbatim for this article — read them in their current version before filing.

The statute also gave the child rights. Article 6 of loi 2020-1266 amended the Informatique et Libertés Act of 1978: a minor may demand erasure of data concerning them on their own, without parental permission. Article 4 obliged platforms to adopt charters covering user information, minors' awareness, a reporting mechanism for breaches, limits on the processing of commercial data, detection of exploitative situations and facilitation of the right to erasure. Finally, LOI n° 2024-120 du 19 février 2024 established that parents exercise the child's image rights jointly and with respect for the child's private life; where dignity or moral integrity is seriously infringed, a judge may delegate parental authority in whole or in part to a third party, and the CNIL was given power to require the blocking of sites that ignore erasure requests.

The United States: Coogan and its digital extension

The American model is built on a different principle: no state requires a permit, and no administrative act admits the child to the set. Only the outcome is regulated — where the money ends up.

The base construct is California's Coogan law. Under Cal. Fam. Code §§ 6752–6753, 15% of a minor performer's gross earnings is paid into a blocked trust account at a bank, credit union or brokerage firm and stays out of reach until 18; the employer must confirm in writing the amounts and the fact that the account exists within 15 business days. Historically this concerned film studios. AB 1880 (signed in September 2024) extended the regime to the digital content creator — a person who creates, posts, distributes or otherwise engages with digital content on an online platform.

In parallel California enacted SB 764 (Padilla, signed on 26 September 2024) — the Child Content Creator Rights Act, addressed not to an employer but to the parent vlogger. The regime switches on where the minor appears in at least 30% of the content and the vlogger earns $1,250 a month or more. The trust receives 65% of the proportionate share of gross revenue: if the child's share of the content is 50% and the payout is $20,000, $6,500 goes into trust. The vlogger keeps statements made under penalty of perjury and provides the records to the child on request; for a wilful breach the court awards actual and punitive damages plus attorneys' fees. The exact Family Code section numbers introduced by SB 764 and the verbatim wording of the thresholds come from law-firm analyses — leginfo is closed by robots.txt, so for any specific deal the text should be pulled from the official publication.

The United States: state family-vlogging statutes

Several states went further and wrote rules specifically for family content.

Illinois. Public Act 103-0556 (SB 1782) inserted the rule as 820 ILCS 205/12.6 with effect from 1 July 2024, but the whole Child Labor Law was then replaced by the Child Labor Law of 2024 (P.A. 103-721), and the provisions in force today are 820 ILCS 206/95 and 820 ILCS 206/100. Justia's repeal flag is literally correct: section 205/12.6 itself was repealed by P.A. 103-721 with effect from 1 January 2025. But what was repealed is the section, not the regime — its substance moved to 206/95 and 206/100, so references to "205/12.6" in older commentary read as recodification rather than as the duties disappearing. A minor under 16 is treated as employed as a vlogger where, within a 12-month period, at least 30% of the compensated video content produced in a 30-day period included the minor's likeness, name or photograph, and the views met the platform's compensation threshold or the actual payment was $0.10 per view or more. The child is entitled to a share of the gross revenue of the video segment of no less than half the content percentage featuring them. The funds are held by a bank, corporate fiduciary or trust company in an account compliant with the Illinois Uniform Transfers to Minors Act; access opens at 18 or on emancipation. Records cover the child's name and age, the number of compensated vlogs, total revenue, on-screen minutes and amounts deposited in trust; the minor has a right of action for actual and punitive damages, costs and fees.

Minnesota. Minn. Stat. § 181A.13 (2024 c 103 s 4) applies from 1 July 2025 — the date is written into the session law itself (Laws 2024, ch. 103, § 4: "This section is effective July 1, 2025"). The threshold is the same — 30% of compensated video content over a 30-day period — but the monetary trigger is lower: the content met the platform's compensation threshold or generated $0.01 per view or more. The trust receives a share of gross of no less than half the content percentage; where several children are involved, the sum is divided equally between them regardless of the difference in their shares of the content. Records are kept until the child turns 21. A right of erasure is written in separately: a person over 13, or an adult filmed as a child, may demand removal of content containing their likeness from any online platform. The sanction is a civil claim with actual and punitive damages, fees and costs.

Utah. HB 322 (2025) introduced four new provisions — Utah Code §§ 34-23-501, 502, 503 and 504 — in force from 7 May 2025: definitions, minor performers, qualifying minors on social media, and the minor's right of erasure. A child qualifies where the average monthly content share is at least 30% and the creator's annual social media income is at least $150,000; earnings are computed by the formula E = (A/T) × (Q/S) × (M/2), and the enrolled text also provides a second variant — E = (A/T) × (1/X) × (M/2). For performers the classic 15% of gross into trust applies, with the duty to establish the trust arising at income of $20,000 or more for the preceding calendar year and falling due by 30 January. Records (income, the child's identity and age, compensated minutes, amounts transferred) are kept for at least two years, and a claim may be brought within five years after the eighteenth birthday. Some trackers call the statute SB 322 — that is a tracker error: both the bill record and the enrolled text on le.utah.gov name it H.B. 322 "Child Actor Regulations", chief sponsor Doug Owens.

Arkansas and Montana passed their own statutes in 2025 (HB 1975 and HB 392 respectively), and both are interesting for how they allocate the erasure duty: in Arkansas the platform must provide a request process while the content creator performs the deletion; in Montana the platform paying the compensation removes the content on demand, and the contract must notify the platform of the child's significant participation in the video. The citations and substance come from a secondary tracker; the statutory texts were not read for this article and should be pulled from the states' session materials before they are relied on.

Comparison of the regimes

The right to erasure after majority

This is the most underrated part of the regime, and it is routinely confused with article 17 GDPR. The GDPR right to erasure is addressed to the controller of personal data and works by withdrawing the basis for processing; the American and French constructs are built differently.

The French model targets the holder of the right: the minor exercises the right to erasure personally, without parental consent (art. 6 loi 2020-1266) — that is, precisely against the person who is usually the controller of the family channel. Loi 2024-120 added leverage: the CNIL may require the blocking of sites that ignore erasure requests.

The American model targets the addressee and the deadline. In Utah, on reaching 18 a person may require the content creator to delete or alter material through the social media platform itself, and the creator has ten business days to comply or refuse with reasons (§ 34-23-504). In Minnesota the demand may be made to any online platform, and it may be made by a teenager over 13 without waiting for majority. Arkansas and Montana allocate the duty between platform and creator differently, and that allocation determines who the demand should be addressed to.

The practical meaning for the adult: content filmed today may, ten or fifteen years from now, become the object of a mandatory takedown at the child's own demand — and a channel monetisation model built on the back catalogue is not ready for that.

Where there is no regime: the UK, Russia, the EU level

United Kingdom. Child performance licensing under the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 and the Children (Performances and Activities) (England) Regulations 2014/3309 does not extend to user-generated content. There is no dedicated protection of child influencers' earnings: disposal of the income depends entirely on the parent or guardian. The DCMS Committee's recommendation to extend regulation to UGC (2022 report) had not been implemented as at April 2025.

Russia. There is no dedicated regime for a child blogger's earnings and no mandatory deposit. The closest analogy is art. 63(5) of the Labour Code: in cinema organisations, theatres, theatrical and concert organisations and circuses, an employment contract may be concluded with a person under fourteen, with the consent of one parent (or guardian) and the permission of the guardianship authority, for participation in the creation and performance of works. A family channel does not fit any of those organisational forms. Beyond that the general rules apply: from 14 a minor disposes of their own earnings independently (art. 26 of the Civil Code), while transactions involving a ward's property require prior permission of the guardianship authority (art. 37). That is no equivalent of Coogan: the parent is under no duty to set the child's share aside.

European Union. There is no horizontal regime either. On 26 November 2025 the European Parliament adopted resolution P10_TA(2025)0299: paragraphs 59–63 state expressly that parent influencers and family influencers use the images of minors, often for monetary reward, raising questions of consent, privacy and commercial exploitation, and call on the Commission to protect minors from commercial exploitation, including by prohibiting platforms from monetising kidfluencing. Paragraph 28 calls for a harmonised European digital age of majority of 16 as the default. The resolution is not binding. A Digital Fairness Act proposal is announced for Q4 2026, but whether it contains provisions on child influencers is unconfirmed as at the date of this article.

The platform as the bottleneck

The economics of a children's channel are calculated after the platform's own restrictions, and two things change the arithmetic.

The first is who receives the money. A Google AdSense participant must be at least 18; a minor may participate only through the account of a parent or guardian, and all payments are made to the adult responsible for the property (AdSense rules, checked on 20.08.2026). That is precisely why every duty listed above — deposit, records, erasure — is addressed to the adult: the platform simply does not know the child as a payee. Incidentally, it also explains who the platform reports to tax administrations under DAC7, 1099-K and their equivalents — the mechanics are set out in the piece on who sees a creator's income.

The second is the "made for kids" setting and COPPA. The amended Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (16 CFR Part 312, Final Rule) was published on 22 April 2025 and took effect on 23 June 2025; the full compliance date for regulated entities is 22 April 2026, save for § 312.11(d)(1), (d)(4) and (g). The rule extended the notion of a child's personal information to biometric identifiers — fingerprints, retina and iris patterns, genetic data, voiceprints, gait and facial templates — and to government-issued identifiers, and introduced a separate definition of a mixed audience website or online service with a mandatory age screen before any collection. The practical consequence for a channel: content flagged as made for kids loses personalised advertising and part of its interactive functionality, so the child's share of gross must be computed on actual, already reduced revenue. The full list of features YouTube disables is worth checking in the platform's own help pages — it changes publicly.

Common mistakes and the order of operations

The order of operations is the reverse of the intuitive one. First permission: check whether the jurisdiction requires authorisation before the first shoot (France — yes; the US states — no). Then deposit: open the blocked account or trust that satisfies the particular statute before the first payment arrives, rather than at the end of the year. Then records: set up a log of the child's on-screen minutes, gross by video segment and amounts transferred, with a retention horizon set by the strictest applicable rule (Minnesota — until the child turns 21). Only after that does it make sense to turn to brand contracts and ownership structure.

Adjacent constructs are worth keeping apart. Managing the property of a child heir through UGMA/UTMA or a § 2503(c) trust is a similar mechanism, but there the parent creates the trust voluntarily and the source of the money is the opposite; that is covered in the piece on minor heirs and guardianship. Monetising a minor athlete follows its own rules — see NIL in US college sport. The overall map of creators' money, tax and visa questions is in the creators cluster.

Questions and answers