UK may ban social media for under-16s: the technical and political limits of the proposal

The UK government is weighing a bill that would raise the age threshold for social media use to 16, TechCrunch reports. The move borrows from Australia's late-2024 measure and goes further than the European Union's current framework.

The existing UK regime, like the US Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), recognises 13 as the minimum age on most platforms. The EU's Digital Services Act (DSA) requires platforms to assess risks for children but leaves national thresholds to each member state. Australia became the first country in recent years to enshrine a 16-year threshold in law.

The central technical question is age verification. Platforms would face two approaches to identifying users under 16: identity-based verification (government ID, driving licence, passport, device-level attestations) and AI-based facial analysis that estimates age from a photo. Both methods have privacy and accuracy limits. Facial-age estimation carries an error of about two years, and identity verification has been criticised for the data-security risks of entrusting platforms with formal documents.

A second issue is bypass. As prior tech regulation has shown, children often work around restrictions through VPNs, parental accounts, second-hand devices or simply lying about their age. The first six-month review in Australia found that around 30% of 14-to-15-year-olds still had active social media accounts.

The third debate is political. Social media use has documented effects on childhood mental health, attention span and sleep — but is a ban the only tool? Critics argue that digital literacy in schools, stronger parental control tools and design obligations on platforms (over endless scrolling, autoplay and push notifications) could form a more rounded package.

The UK government has not yet published the bill's details, but sources told TechCrunch the proposal will cover the largest platforms — Meta, TikTok, Snap, X and YouTube — while educational and messaging apps might be exempt. End-to-end encrypted messaging services like WhatsApp will be considered separately.

Platform companies are approaching the issue differently. Meta favours a parental-consent model: instead of strict age verification, opening a child account would require parental approval. TikTok is working on a more constrained "child mode" (no data retention, time limits, non-public profiles). YouTube prefers to make its existing YouTube Kids platform a tighter gateway.

The effect on the EU is also relevant. Germany, France and Sweden have all discussed similar moves; France adopted a national rule on parental approval for those under 15. A UK move could become a reference point if Europe as a whole tightens.

If passed, the law is unlikely to take effect before 2027. Platforms need to build age-verification systems, the Information Commissioner's Office must sign them off, and family support mechanisms need to be set up. Still, the debate reads as Europe's latest attempt to set, in law, what relationship a country wants between its children and social media.