The UK government has been accused of rushing out plans for a social media ban for under-16s without considering the knock-on effects it would have on surveillance, privacy and young people’s wellbeing.
Ministers are expected to announce a full social media ban for children in the coming weeks, after technology secretary Liz Kendall said the plans were backed by 90% of respondents to a consultation on improving children’s relationships with phones.
The consultation closed last month after receiving over 116,000 responses from tech giants, members of the public, and advocacy groups. Keir Starmer has said his government will act quickly on its findings, which have not yet been made public in full.
But privacy and technology experts, as well as those working with children, have warned that the plans, which will require social media users to verify their age, could lead to a surveillance creep and data breaches, and push children into unregulated parts of the internet as well as cutting them off from social media’s potential benefits, such as giving LGBTQIA+ youth a chance to access communities.
Others have voiced concerns that the government has not properly thought out how the ban will work.
“It’s very difficult to know what the actual ban would look like,” said Alan Woodward, professor of computer science and cybersecurity at the University of Surrey. The details of a ban have not been announced yet, although specific restrictions have been discussed.
“I don’t think the government really knows where they’re going with a lot of this stuff,” Jasleen Chaggar, senior legal officer for British civil liberties and privacy campaigning organisation Big Brother Watch, told the Media Storm podcast.
Chaggar continued: “They want an outcome, but they haven’t actually figured out the technical solution to get there. So it’s like, ‘tech companies, you need to figure this out, or we’re just going to outsource this to ID companies and get them to figure out the details.’”
Donald Trump’s administration in the US, where the majority of Big Tech and social media firms are headquartered, has warned the UK against implementing the ban, arguing that it would “impose disproportionate compliance burdens on American companies” and limit freedom of speech.
But Kendall said she isn’t concerned “in the slightest” by the White House’s warning. “I think companies will continue investing in Britain,” the technology secretary said. “My focus is on what is right for British parents and British families.”
Asked about the status of the ban, a spokesperson said the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology doesn’t “comment on speculation about future announcements”.
“We've been clear we are determined to act quickly, but we will do so in a way that is effective, enforceable and genuinely keeps children safe,” he added. “As we've previously said, we will set out the government's response by the summer, and importantly we already have the powers to act within months rather than years.”
How did we get here?
Conversation around a social media ban for children has gained traction in recent months amid growing concern around online safety and after Australia rolled out a similar ban in December last year. Starmer has cited the Australian ban, which imposes multimillion‑dollar fines on firms that fail to deactivate under‑16s’ accounts, as inspiration for the UK’s plan.
In March, the UK government launched a six-week study to test the reactions of 300 teenagers aged 13 to 17 to having four different levels of access to apps such as Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok. One group was totally unable to access the apps, another could access them for only one hour a day, another had access blocked overnight, and the last had unrestricted use of social media.
While the results have not yet been made public, Kendall previously said they would be used as the “evidence we need to take the next steps”.
But an embattled Starmer has been accused of rushing into a ban for political reasons – having initially opposed the idea.
The Times this week reported that the prime minister saw the ban as “a last-ditch attempt to win over Labour MPs before Andy Burnham’s possible return to parliament”. Burnham, Manchester’s Labour mayor, is hoping to win a parliamentary seat at the Makerfield by-election on 18 June. If he succeeds, he is widely expected to launch a leadership challenge against Starmer after Labour’s dismal local election results last month.
“Child safety is too important to be relegated to piecemeal press releases timed around by-elections,” said Jack Coulson, head of advocacy at Big Brother Watch.
“It is right that the government should tackle Big Tech's failure to prioritise child safety over profit, but we are concerned that the complex task of safely changing the digital landscape is being done on the hoof,” Coulson added.
This week, Starmer also announced that his government will require manufacturers such as Apple and Google to activate or install software to detect and block explicit images on personal devices, which could be bypassed only by verifying that you’re an adult.
Companies that fail to introduce this software on any technology sold in the UK within three months may face fines and criminal liability, the government has said. It has been suggested that legislation could be used to target “operating system providers and others in the supply chain, such as retailers” if tech firms don’t comply.
Neither Apple nor Google currently offers nudity-blocking software that works across its entire operating system, although Apple is starting to implement age verification for specific apps and services on iPhones and iPads sold in the UK, and Google began detecting and blurring nudity on its messages app last year.
What would a ban mean?
Many critics have argued that a ban is hard to enforce – 61% of under-16s in Australia still have access to social media, research suggests – and could leave children ill-equipped to handle social media and the internet when they get older and do have access. But perhaps the most cited concern focuses on surveillance.
Age verification “sounds simple” and “has got widespread appeal,” said cybersecurity specialist Woodward, but in reality, “it means age-verifying all of us.”
Organisations have previously warned that all social media users would need to submit an ID or credit card if platforms are required to verify that users are over 16, which could lead to a lack of online anonymity and a risk of data breaches.
“People will say, ‘Well, I’ve done nothing wrong, so I’ve got nothing to hide.’ And that is such a naive argument,” said Woodward. “Once you put the technology in place, time and again we have seen it being abused by governments – you get this scope creep.”
Alternatives to submitting ID include using AI to verify age through a facial scan, Woodward said, but this can be bypassed with makeup. He added that the age verification already needed to access websites containing pornographic content, which was introduced in the Online Safety Act, is creating a “whack-a-mole situation” amid suggestions of introducing age verifications on the VPNs used to bypass the requirements.
“The price of admission to the internet will now be ID checks,” said Big Brother Watch’s Coulson. “Ending anonymity online is a step that authoritarian regimes can only dream of. We all deserve privacy, but political dissidents, journalists, and victims of coercive control will find the need to out themselves especially terrifying.
“These policies create new risks, for adults and children alike,” Coulson continued, explaining that it’s not certain that platforms will delete the sensitive data handed over as part of the age verification process.
Over the past year, for example, messaging app Discord announced that over 70,000 user photos were potentially leaked, while users of the dating safety app Tea had their personal data and photos leaked online.
The UK’s proposed ban comes as countries including France, Greece, and Indonesia are considering and preparing for similar plans to restrict young people’s access to social media.
“We’re not honest enough about what these platforms are,” said Velisalava Hillman, a lecturer at Goldsmiths and founder of EDDS Institute, which researches and audits educational technology and AI systems used in schools. “They’re not about socialising or creating friendships – they’re money-making machines.”
But a ban is “a very narrow way of looking at this problem,” said Hillman. “The debate is always around the idea that children necessarily have to be on these platforms. They don’t have to; the world existed well before these social media platforms.”
“We await the government’s wider proposals, but this plan is a retrograde step for everyone's privacy,” said Coulson. “What we need is a wholesale culture change around the age at which children are given devices, what kinds of devices, and how parents engage with existing tools.”
