Online safety for under 16s

On Monday 16 February, the Prime Minister's Office (10 Downing Street) announced that the 'Government will give parents and carers greater clarity and support as the Prime Minister announces immediate action to make the online world safer for children' - read the announcement. 

Notes to editors inform us that:

• New powers, to be tabled in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, will enable the Government to act at speed to introduce targeted actions off the back of the upcoming children’s digital wellbeing consultation.
• Government intends to table an amendment to the C&P Bill to give effect to the measures around preservation of child social media data.
• Action will be guided by the outcomes of the consultation with parents and children, set to launch next month, and subject to an affirmative vote on the floor of the House of Commons, giving MPs a clear say on the proposals.
• Government is tabling an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill to allow the government to require chatbots not currently in scope of the Online Safety Act to protect their users from illegal content.

It appears that a legal duty to protect under 16 year olds will be placed on bodies providing social media accounts (e.g. Facebook etc).  If so, it is then likely that ALL such accounts will have to require processes such as age-verification and it may be that ALL accounts will be monitored in some way to try to detect whether under 16-year old are actually using them.

Inevitably, this raises concerns. As The Register comments - 'The UK government's proposed ban on under-16s using social media would amount to building a mass age-verification system for the entire internet, creating "serious risks to privacy, data protection, and freedom of expression," ...'

Links:

Parliament - Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill 

Parliament - Crime and Policing Bill

The proposed amendments to both Bills are at late stages of the Parliamentary process. 

Children's Commissioner Statement 16 February 2026 

Australia: 

In December 2025, AUSTRALIA introduced a social media ban for under 16 year olds - see UNICEF Australia. The Australian Legislation introduced a mandatory minimum age of 16 for accounts on certain social media platforms. It came into effect on 10 December 2025, and parents cannot give their consent to let under-16s use these platforms.  

Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024