The United Arab Emirates has introduced significant new regulations to restrict social media access for children, becoming the first Arab nation to establish a legal minimum age for digital platform usage.
According to the mandates announced on Thursday, children under the age of 15 are now prohibited from creating or operating personal accounts, reports Gulf News.
Teenagers aged 15 and 16 are only permitted to access these platforms under stringent safeguards, including mandatory parental oversight, rigorous content filtering, and restricted communication with unknown users.
Technology companies have been granted a one-year grace period to integrate the necessary technical systems to comply with these requirements.
This move aligns the Emirates with an accelerating international trend that gained momentum after Australia launched the world’s first nationwide ban in December 2025. Recent data indicates that at least a dozen countries are currently legislating or implementing similar measures to protect minors online.
Indonesia joined Australia in active enforcement in March 2026, while the United Kingdom expects to pass its own legislation by Christmas 2026. Other nations, including France, Turkey, and Malaysia, are in various stages of passing or tabling laws, and the Canadian culture minister introduced legislation this week to ban those under 16 from having accounts.
To enforce these mandates effectively, governments are shifting away from unreliable self-declared birth dates toward sophisticated verification technologies. Platforms are now expected to utilise more robust methods such as government-issued digital IDs, AI-driven facial age estimation, and credit card or payment verification.
Major industry players have already begun adapting their systems; for instance, Meta utilises artificial intelligence to identify underage users through interaction patterns and profile activity.
This proactive approach reportedly led to the removal of nearly 550,000 underage accounts in Australia shortly after its law took effect. Similarly, TikTok and Roblox have introduced features like “Family Pairing” and video selfie verification to bolster safety and ensure younger users are assigned to age-appropriate account types.
While these measures have received broad support from parents concerned about the link between heavy social media use and mental health issues like anxiety or sleep disruption, the shift has sparked considerable debate.
Critics and privacy advocates argue that blanket bans might inadvertently push younger users toward less regulated parts of the internet or necessitate the collection of excessive personal data to verify identities.
Despite these challenges, the international community appears increasingly committed to making platforms legally responsible for ensuring that underage users remain off their services.
