The UK’s under-16 social media ban: what the Government announced and how it becomes law
In short: The UK government will stop under-16s from holding social media accounts. It announced this under-16 social media ban on 15 June 2026, but the ban only takes effect through regulations under section 214A of the Online Safety Act 2023, due before Parliament by the end of 2026 and in force around Spring 2027. The platforms, not Ofcom, will run the age checks.
The Government will ban under-16s from holding social media accounts, and has trailed measures that go further than Australia’s. It announced the plan on 15 June 2026, but has not yet written the regulations that will give it force. The practical work falls on the platforms, which will have to prove, reliably and lawfully, that a user is 16. Proving age to that standard means collecting more personal data from everyone, adults included, and that cuts against the data minimisation that data protection law requires. The announcement also comes at a hard political moment for the Prime Minister, and some critics have asked whether the timetable owes more to politics than to evidence.
What the Government announced
The under-16 social media ban will cover platforms whose main purpose is social interaction, where users post material and an algorithm decides what they see. The Government has named Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X, and has said it does not mean to catch private messaging services such as WhatsApp and Signal. The measures form its response to the Growing up in the online world consultation, which ran from 2 March to 26 May 2026 and drew more than 116,000 responses.
The Government says it has gone beyond Australia. Beyond the account ban, it has trailed blocks on livestreaming and on contact from strangers, reaching a wider range of services including gaming, and turned on by default for 16 and 17 year olds so that protection does not fall away the moment a user turns 16. AI chatbots that simulate romantic or sexual relationships will have to enforce a minimum age of 18. The Government is still weighing overnight curfews and breaks in infinite scrolling for under-18s, and has promised more detail in July. It points to its own finding that nine in ten parents would support a ban for under-16s.
None of this changes anything for users today. The Government expects to lay the first regulations before the end of 2026, with the rules taking effect around Spring 2027. Until then, under-16s can use these services as before, and the duties already on platforms continue to apply.
How the under-16 social media ban becomes law
The announcement does not itself create the ban, and there is no fresh Act behind it. Parliament passed the enabling power earlier this year. Section 70 of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 inserted a new section 214A into the Online Safety Act 2023, which lets the Secretary of State make regulations requiring providers of specified internet services to stop or limit children’s access to a service, or to particular features of it, by reference to an age the regulations set.
That power is broad. Section 214A(4) lists what the regulations may require: daily or time-of-day limits, restrictions on contact from strangers, restrictions on livestreaming to or from strangers, and restrictions on features that reveal a user’s location. Section 214A(5) lets the Secretary of State make those requirements enforceable through the regime already in Part 7 of the Online Safety Act. Section 214A(8) goes further still, allowing the regulations to amend or repeal primary legislation, which is a wide delegated power for a measure of this importance. The Secretary of State has to act on the back of the Growing up in the online world consultation and to weigh the responses, and Ofcom has to research or advise when asked and then publish that advice.
So the real shape of the ban will come in the regulations rather than the announcement: which services, which ages, which features, and what compliance looks like. The regulations follow the draft affirmative procedure. Section 70 amended section 225 of the Online Safety Act so that they cannot be made until a draft has been laid before both Houses and approved by each. Parliament will be able to accept or reject the text, but not to amend it.
Ofcom’s response and the age assurance question
Age assurance is the question the Government, Ofcom and the platforms now have to answer together. In a letter of 15 June 2026, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, Liz Kendall, asked Ofcom to work out what highly effective age assurance looks like for telling whether a user is over 16, and to publish that assessment by October so that Parliament can debate the regulations on an informed basis. The letter is firm on data privacy and security, asks Ofcom to keep working with the Information Commissioner’s Office, and asks it to find an approach that does not shut out adults who are old enough but hold no passport or driving licence.
Dame Melanie Dawes, Ofcom’s Chief Executive, replied the same day. Ofcom has begun looking at the options for effective age assurance at 16 and will report by the end of October. It will assess the impact of a ban within a year of the ban taking effect, will publish a new roadmap for the online safety regime once the regulations are introduced, and will draw on the extra Government funding the letter promises. Ofcom will not check anyone’s age. That job stays with the platforms, which will have to choose and run age assurance that meets the standard Ofcom and the regulations set.
Strong age checks come at a cost. Checking age to a high standard means collecting more personal data from every user, adults included. Section 12 of the Online Safety Act already sets a stiff test, age assurance that is highly effective at telling whether a user is a child, and a firm over-or-under-16 gate across the mainstream services pushes harder still against the data minimisation principle in Article 5(1)(c) of the UK GDPR, which says personal data must go no further than is necessary. The available methods, from facial age estimation to checks on an account’s age or a linked payment card, each raise their own questions of accuracy, profiling and security. The Secretary of State has asked Ofcom to make the checks work without locking out eligible adults, and that is the line the regulations will have to hold.
What Australia did, and what its first months show
Australia offers the obvious comparison for the under-16 social media ban, because it has already done this. The Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024 received assent on 10 December 2024 and took effect a year later, on 10 December 2025. It requires the providers of an age-restricted social media platform to take reasonable steps to keep Australians under 16 from holding an account. The duty rests on the platform, not on the child or the parent, and a young person who slips through faces no penalty. A platform that fails to take reasonable steps can be fined up to A$49.5 million by the eSafety Commissioner.
Australia sets the scope of its ban through a legislative instrument rather than the Act itself: the Online Safety (Age-Restricted Social Media Platforms) Rules 2025 carve out messaging, online gaming, and services mainly for education or health, while the regulator counts the mainstream platforms, YouTube among them after Australia abandoned an early proposed exemption, as in scope. It allows no parental-consent exemption, so a parent cannot sign a 15 year old back in. On age checking, the Government’s Age Assurance Technology Trial concluded that the technology works and that age assurance is practical and achievable, while cautioning that no single method suits every case and that platforms can reduce circumvention through VPNs and forged documents without stamping it out. The eSafety Commissioner’s guidance stays at the level of principle and does not mandate particular tools.
Its first months are the most instructive part for the UK, though much of what we know is press reporting rather than formal evaluation. Meta started deactivating under-16 Australian accounts in the days before the duty began, and Snapchat locked under-16 accounts until users turn 16. Reporting also picked up a sharp rise in VPN downloads as some users tried to look as though they were outside Australia. Opinion has split, with civil-liberties groups warning about the effects on free expression and on the security of identity data. For all the extra reach the UK has trailed, Australia’s scheme remains the narrower one: a single account ban on a defined list of platforms, without the livestreaming, stranger-contact, curfew and chatbot layers the UK has in mind.
| Feature | United Kingdom (announced 15 June 2026) | Australia (in force 10 December 2025) |
|---|---|---|
| Legal vehicle | Regulations under new s.214A Online Safety Act 2023 (inserted by Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026) | Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024, amending the Online Safety Act 2021 |
| Minimum age | 16 | 16 |
| Who carries the duty | Providers of specified internet services; enforced via Online Safety Act Part 7 | Providers of age-restricted social media platforms; “reasonable steps” duty |
| Who runs the age checks | The platforms; Ofcom sets the standard and enforces | The platforms; eSafety Commissioner sets guidance and enforces |
| Penalty on child or parent | No | No |
| Maximum penalty on platform | Up to £18 million or 10% of qualifying worldwide revenue (existing Online Safety Act regime) | Up to A$49.5 million |
| Scope beyond the account ban | Livestreaming and stranger-contact blocks, gaming reach, AI companion chatbots age-gated at 18, curfews and infinite-scroll breaks under consideration | Account ban only on a defined list of platforms |
| Parental consent exemption | To be set in regulations | None |
| Status | Announced; regulations expected late 2026, in force around Spring 2027 | In force since 10 December 2025 |
Scope, overlap and enforcement
Section 214A applies to specified internet services, a category the regulations will define, rather than to any fixed statutory idea of social media. That gap is what lets the Government include YouTube and leave WhatsApp out, and it leaves the real boundary in the Secretary of State’s hands. Services that mix functions, a game with a social feed, a messaging app with public channels, a generative AI companion that behaves like a user-to-user service, will stay on that line until the regulations and Ofcom’s guidance settle them.
The ban also adds to duties already in force. Providers of services likely to be accessed by children remain bound by the risk-assessment and safety duties in sections 11 and 12 of the Online Safety Act, and by Ofcom’s Protection of Children Codes, in force since 25 July 2025. A platform will run age assurance both for those existing duties and for the new access ban, and will have to square any difference between the two standards. Whether a service is in scope at all, and at what level, is the first question for any provider. Bratby Law advises online service providers on that scope question and on dealing with an Ofcom investigation.
The Online Safety Act already applies to services with UK links wherever they are based, and the new requirements run through the same penalty and business-disruption powers, so a non-UK platform with UK users is just as exposed. Australia’s early weeks show what any age gate is up against: VPNs, shared devices and long-standing adult accounts are the obvious ways round it, and a stock of older accounts that are hard to re-check is a lasting weak point. Ofcom’s recent codes work points to an active enforcement posture, and platforms should read the under-16 social media ban against it.
Viewpoint
The announcement is a firm commitment, but it is not law yet, and the parts that will decide how it works are still to be written. The substance will sit in regulations made under a power broad enough to rewrite primary legislation, with Parliament able only to accept or reject the result. That puts real weight on the consultation responses and on Ofcom’s age-assurance work in October. My own view is that the central difficulty is proving age reliably without turning every adult user into the subject of an identity check, which is as much a data protection problem as an online-safety one. Australia shows a market-wide ban can be made to work; it also shows that determined teenagers and VPNs do not go away. The timing matters too. The announcement comes at a moment of real political pressure on the Prime Minister, and critics, including the father of Molly Russell, have asked whether it owes more to politics than to evidence. That is for readers to judge. For platforms the practical position is clear: the timetable is short, and the work to start now is on age-assurance design and scope.
Frequently asked questions
When does the under-16 social media ban take effect?
Not yet. The Government announced it on 15 June 2026 and expects to lay the first regulations under section 214A of the Online Safety Act 2023 before Parliament by the end of 2026, with the rules taking effect around Spring 2027. Until then the existing online-safety duties continue, and under-16s can use these services as before.
Which platforms are covered?
The Government has named Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X, and has said it does not mean to catch private messaging services such as WhatsApp and Signal. The regulations will set the precise list, defining the specified internet services the duty applies to, so the boundary is not yet final.
Who has to check a user’s age?
The platforms. They will have to run age assurance that is highly effective at telling whether a user is under 16. Ofcom does not check ages; it will set out what counts as effective checking and report on the options by the end of October 2026. The methods range from facial age estimation to checks on an account’s age or a linked payment card, and each raises data protection questions, because reliable age checking means processing more personal data.
Does this replace the Online Safety Act children’s duties?
No. The ban is additional. The children’s risk-assessment and safety duties in sections 11 and 12 of the Online Safety Act 2023, and Ofcom’s Protection of Children Codes in force since 25 July 2025, continue to apply. Platforms have to satisfy both the existing duties and the new access ban.
If you are working out whether your service falls within the under-16 social media ban, or how age assurance fits with your duties under the Online Safety Act and the UK GDPR, Bratby Law advises online service providers on what compliance requires. Contact Rob Bratby.
