UK to Ban Under-16s From Major Social Media Platforms

The UK government has announced that children under 16 will be barred from major social media platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, YouTube, and X, in what Prime Minister Keir Starmer described as a measure that goes “further than any country in the world”, as reported by CNN. The announcement was made on 15 June 2026.

According to the government, the ban will apply to user-to-user platforms built around social interaction, posting, and algorithmic feeds, while messaging services such as WhatsApp and Signal are not currently in scope. Alongside the account ban, the rules will block functions such as livestreaming and contact from strangers for under-16s.

Ministers plan to bring the measures to Parliament before Christmas, with protections expected to come into force in spring 2027. The onus will fall on platforms to ensure under-16s are not using their services, with significant fines for those who fail to take reasonable steps. Starmer said he would push back if technology companies resist, and acknowledged that some teenagers would try to get around the restrictions.

The UK is following the model set by Australia, which in December 2025 became the first country to bar under-16s from holding social media accounts. Early Australian data has fuelled debate about enforcement, with polling cited by regulators suggesting that roughly seven in ten children who held accounts before the ban still have them, having found ways around age-gating. The US Embassy in London also raised concerns ahead of the UK announcement, questioning whether age checks would work in practice.

Britain joins a fast-growing list of governments tightening rules on minors’ access. Spain has banned under-16s and introduced strict age verification requirements, Malaysia has begun enforcing its own ban, and France, Denmark, Norway, and Ireland are among those that have announced or are weighing similar measures. The shift also extends beyond individual states, with the G7 agreeing on a first-of-its-kind joint approach to online child safety that puts age assurance centre stage. The common thread is a move away from self-declared ages toward verification that platforms can demonstrate to regulators.

The central challenge for platforms is proving a user’s age reliably without collecting more personal data than necessary, and doing so at the scale of millions of accounts. Self-declared birthdates offer little protection, while heavy document-upload flows create friction and privacy risk. Effective compliance increasingly depends on layered age assurance that combines multiple signals and stands up to regulatory scrutiny.

Shufti’s age verification solution helps platforms meet these obligations, combining facial biometric age estimation with document verification, KJM certification, and EUDI Wallet and eIDAS 2.0 readiness. Platforms preparing for the UK’s 2027 deadline can request a demo to see how layered age assurance works in practice.