UK government consults on social media ban for under-16s  

The UK government is consulting parents, children, technology companies and civil society groups over proposals to keep children safe online, including banning under-16s from social media.

A three-month consultation launched today, described by the government as the “most ambitious consultation on social media”, is seeking views on proposed measures to protect children against the potential harms of social media, artificial intelligence chatbots and gaming platforms.

The measures include age restrictions on the use of virtual private networks (VPNs), curfews on social media, and restrictions on a range of technology functions for children, including livestreaming and sharing their geographic location.

In its consultation document, the government stated that there would be no exemption for services that use end-to-end encryption.

Alongside the consultation, the government is planning to run live pilots with teenagers to test the impact of social media bans, overnight curfews and daily screen time limits.

In February, prime minister Keir Starmer announced plans, in a post on Substack, to implement a minimum age for social media “in a matter of months”, restrict addictive features such as endless scrolling and autoplay, and limit children’s access to VPNs.

The move follows announcements by a growing list of countries of their intention to introduce social media bans in the wake of Australia’s ban in December 2025. Germany, Spain and France are among those introducing such restrictions.

The UK government said parents are concerned about the impact social media is having on their children’s sleep, concentration and mental health, and are worried about children talking to chatbots and relying on their advice.

Parents and campaign groups have called for an outright ban, but children’s charities have warned that a blanket ban could drive children to less regulated parts of the internet or leave them unprepared when they do go online. The Online Safety Act brought in strong protections, but there is growing agreement that more needs to be done.

The government consultation seeks views on whether online platforms should be required to switch off addictive features, including infinite scrolling and autoplay, that could keep children hooked and interfere with their sleep.

The government acknowledged that requiring users to verify their age with technology providers raises privacy concerns. One way to enforce age limits would be to require every social media user in the UK to verify their age online. An alternative approach, as adopted by Australia, would be to use a range of age assurance measures, such as age verification, age estimation and inference.

The government said it would invite families and young people to share their views, and hold “community events”, influencer roundtables, and engage with schools and civil society organisations.

It has dedicated versions of the consultation document for young people and their parents and carers, which it said will make it easier for them to share their views. 

Technology secretary Liz Kendall said: “We know parents everywhere are grappling with how much screen time their children should have, when they should give them a phone, what they are seeing online, and the impact all of this is having.”

The government’s announcement came as over 380 scientists from 30 countries published an open letter that warned world-wide moves to impose age limits on social media, chatbots, instant messaging and VPNs could diminish online safety by exposing users to malware and scams.

They call for a moratorium on deployment of age verification technology until there is a scientific consensus on risks and benefits of age-verification and on its technical feasibility.

“We believe that it is dangerous and socially unacceptable to introduce a large-scale access control mechanism without a clear understanding of the implications that different design decisions can have on security, privacy, equality and ultimately on freedom of decision and automomy of individuals and nations, ” the letter warns.

Joe Jones, Director of Research & Insights at the IAPP, a professional association with 90,000 members, said that online safety was becoming one of the most complex areas of regulation.

“Online safety issues, which include in their scope issues related to age-gating services, the impact of specific user-experience designs and functionalities, and monitoring and moderating content, are increasingly becoming one of the most complex, vexing, and multi-faceted digital policy issues, if not policy issues more generally,” he added.