UK government draws legal line in the sand on social media age minimum

The UK government says it is giving childhood back to the nation’s children with its new legislation restricting social media platforms to users 16 and up. In a release that reads a bit like one of George Michael’s more grandiose compositions, it proclaims that its plans “will set a new normal for future generations, kickstarting a cultural shift and driving forward the government’s fight to give every child the best start in life.”

The UK has leaned heavily on Australia’s trailblazing Social Media Minimum Age (SMMA) act for its model, which captures user-to-user platforms, “whose purpose is to enable social interaction and which allow users to post material, alongside algorithms.” That means Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X, or any site that mimics their function. Messaging services like WhatsApp and Signal are excluded.

The government has been eager to tout its regulations for going further than any other country, by introducing blocks on functions such as livestreaming and stranger communication with children for users under 16. “Restrictions on these functionalities will also be on by default for 16- and 17-year-olds to prevent a cliff-edge at 16,” the government says. It also promises to look at overnight curfews and “breaks in infinite scrolling for under-18-year-olds,” and to enforce a minimum age of 18 for companion chatbots that simulate sexual relationships.

You’ve got to give for what you take

“This is a line in the sand,” says vanquished Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who is preparing to step down. “Tech giants had their chance and failed, but we’re stepping in to protect children, back parents and set a new normal for future generations.”

“I’ve heard first hand from families crying out for change and we will do right by them.”

Also in a state of high catharsis, Technology Secretary Liz Kendall calls the law “a bold and significant step towards creating a safer, healthier life online, for our children and future generations.”

“My driving force has always been to give every child, from every background, the best possible start in life. That is what these regulations will deliver. We are taking power away from the tech giants and putting it back in parents’ hands.”

‘You have three months to comply,’ says PM leaving in two weeks

More age-related regulations, of course, means more need for highly effective age assurance. That term and what it encompasses has been the subject of much debate. Online regulator Ofcom is working to sort out exactly what constitutes “highly effective.” It does so under pressure from the Secretary of State, who recently demanded that Ofcom perform an urgent review of its enforcement capabilities and deliver a clear enforcement strategy – and dangled the carrot of more funding to cover its new responsibilities.

Starmer’s heroic proclamations may be part of the effort to burnish his legacy: a signature policy piece he can point to as a success amid a clutter of failures. It is an easy win politically: the government’s public consultation showed that 9 in 10 parents support a social media prohibition for children under 16. Kids, too, want to be shielded from social media and its pressures for longer: two-thirds agree that children younger than 16 should not be allowed to use at least some social media platforms.

The outgoing prime minister notes that the government has already taken powers through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act, using secondary legislation to introduce targeted protections. “This means the first set of regulations could be in effect in Spring 2027.”

The gauntlet has been thrown. Last week, Starmer challenged tech companies that provide operating systems for smartphones – chiefly Apple and Google – to implement measures to detect nudity and prevent children from seeing it, or face penalties. He has given them three months to do it.

Starmer is expected to exit Downing Street within weeks. As such, his fight is ultimately not his own: it now falls to presumptive future prime minister Andy Burnham and his government, which will wish to distance itself from some of Starmer’s policies. Observers say Burnham is less than keen on the government’s digital identity plan, and is likely to take his time in making decisions following a spring 2026 public consultation. But given the broad public support for social media age limits, and changing attitudes toward large social platforms globally, it may be a rare win that can be passed from one leader to another.

Could two sides of Big Tech cancel out UK private sector?

The question for DVS providers remains: to whom will the spoils of political success fall? It depends on where the age check happens – and in targeting Apple and Google with his three-month challenge, Starmer may have implicitly endorsed the device-level age verification model that social media firms want in place.

Although the instruction applies to nudity (i.e. porn), it could give Big Social more leverage in arguing that device and OS providers should be responsible for age assurance, rather than platforms.

The Age Verification Providers Association (AVPA) has pointed out that there is no trusted way for operating systems to deliver age assertions to third-party applications currently deployed at scale, and that public safety best practices recommend putting a warning or gate as close as possible to the risk at hand – which, in this case, means at platform level.

A decisive outcome is unlikely any time soon. But what has emerged is a clear picture of the main contenders in the global age assurance tournament. Governments pursue legislation. Big Social pushes for it to happen on app stores or devices – which is to say, through Apple and Google. The fourth contender is David (or Cabo Verde, as you prefer) among the goliaths, in the form of a private biometric age assurance sector looking for a way to leverage its unheralded strengths and deliver on the government’s lofty promises.

Article Topics

age verification  |  biometrics  |  digital verification service (DVS)  |  social media  |  UK age verification  |  UK digital ID