Digital ECA and public health: comprehensive protection of children and adolescents in the digital environment as the realization of the absolute priority principle and a collective health imperative

Abstract

Law No. 15,211 of September 17, 2025, known as the Digital Statute of Children and Adolescents (Digital ECA), entered into force on March 17, 2026, and was regulated by Decree No. 12,880 of March 18, 2026. This article narrows its object to the core of protection-by-design duties imposed on providers of digital products and services, particularly the prevention of compulsive use and the prohibition of manipulative design practices, and examines to what extent this core gives effect to the constitutional principle of absolute priority and can be understood as a collective health intervention aimed at youth mental health. The hypothesis is that the law shifts the regulatory focus from content to platform architecture, treating it as a commercial determinant of health. The study adopts a qualitative approach, a deductive method, and bibliographic and documentary research, analyzing the statute and its regulatory decree, legal scholarship, and peer-reviewed scientific literature. The results indicate that the epidemiological evidence, although predominantly correlational and of debated magnitude, justifies a proportionate precautionary intervention, and that the Digital ECA translates this logic into law by requiring protective default settings, health impact assessments, transparency, and joint liability. The article concludes that the effectiveness of this model depends on the regulator's institutional capacity, on the production of data on its effects, and on intersectoral coordination with the health system.