UK Regulators Mandate Enhanced Age Verification for Social Media

UK regulators have issued urgent directives to major social media platforms, demanding enhanced age verification systems to prevent children under 13 from accessing services designed for older users. The move, announced on March 12, targets companies including Meta's Facebook and Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, Roblox and X, following evidence that current safeguards are failing to curb underage sign-ups.

Ofcom, the media regulator, and the Information Commissioners Office (ICO), the data protection authority, jointly wrote to the firms, outlining steps to enforce minimum age requirements more effectively. Platforms typically set 13 as the entry age, but Ofcom research indicates that 86 percent of 10- to 12-year-olds in the UK already hold their own accounts. Officials attribute this to reliance on self-declaration, where users simply enter their birthdate during registration, a method easily bypassed by children.

The regulators called for adoption of advanced technologies, such as facial age estimation, digital IDs or one-time photo matching, which are already in use for adult content sites. These tools aim to verify ages without solely depending on user input. Companies...