According to research from Ofcom, starting secondary school is often the moment that many children get their first smartphone and time online rises steeply with age, with children aged 8-14 spending an average of one day a week online, and doubles to around 2 days a week for 15-17 year olds.
Following its consultation, the UK government has now announced a ban on social media for the under 16s in the UK. It plans to use the same model for a social media ban as Australia. This would capture user-to-user platforms, whose purpose is to enable social interaction and which allow users to post material, alongside algorithms. The ban will therefore include platforms like Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X. The government does not intend for messaging services like WhatsApp and Signal to be included in the social media ban. It also intends to exclude educational services, e-commerce platforms and music streamin.
The government also plans blocks on harmful functions such as livestreaming and stranger communication with children for under-16s. These restriction will apply to a wider range of online services, including on gaming sites. Restrictions on these functionalities will also be on by default for under 16- and 17-year-olds to prevent a cliff-edge at 16. The government will also be looking in more detail at overnight curfews and breaks in infinite scrolling for under-18-year-olds and will set out more detail in July.
So-called AI ‘romantic companion’ chatbots will have to enforce a minimum age of 18. Similar intimate functionalities will be restricted for under-18s on AI chatbots more widely.
The government will also learn the lessons from Australia’s experience by introducing more highly effective age assurance (HEAA) measures to support compliance, with the aim of making it more difficult for children to bypass safeguards.
Ofcom will conduct a rapid study on what is effective age assurance for verifying whether someone is over 16. The Secretary of State has also written to the new Chair of Ofcom to ask for an urgent review of Ofcom’s enforcement capabilities with a clear enforcement strategy to be published as soon as possible. Ofcom has already confirmed that it has started looking at the options for effective age assurance at 16 and will deliver an assessment that can be used to inform parliamentary debate by the end of October. The ICO has also responded to the announcement.
The government has already taken powers through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 to act quickly, using secondary legislation to introduce targeted protections without needing to wait to bring in a new Act of Parliament. This means the first set of regulations could be in effect in Spring 2027.
As well as the consultation responses which supported a social media ban, last month, the House of Commons Education Select Committee called for a statutory ban on social media for children, in addition to urgent action to end features that it says are deliberately designed to drive excessive screen usage among children and young people. The Committee urged the government to restrict “addictive” design elements for under-18s including infinite scrolling, disappearing messages and algorithm-driven content. The Committee argued that social media companies and other platforms have not shown requisite accountability for the harms that children may experience on their platforms. Finally, the Committee said that the government should treat online harms as a safeguarding and public health issue and regulation should focus on reducing exposure to harm by policy and design of the platforms themselves.
In addition, last week, the Prime Minister told tech companies to activate built-in features or implement technical solutions on smartphones and tablets to detect and block nude images for children.
