ICO warns YouTube, Meta, TikTok, and Snapchat they are failing to enforce minimum age requirements
UK watchdog the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), has called on social media and video sharing platforms to strengthen age assurance measures, “so young children can’t access services that are not designed for them”.
This follows a vote in the House of Commons this week, when MPs rejected an outright ban on social media for under-16s. Instead, the Labour government introduced a consultation to assess the viability of a ban, as well as the possibility of tighter restrictions.
In an open letter to the platforms, the ICO argued that minimum age requirements must no longer rely solely on children self-declaring their ages.
“Our message to platforms is simple, act today to keep children safe online,” said Paul Arnold, ICO chief executive officer
“There’s now modern technology at your fingertips, so there is no excuse not to have effective age assurance measures in place.
“Platforms need to be ready to demonstrate what they’re doing to keep underage children out and safeguard those children that are old enough to access their services.”
The ICO also wrote directly to platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and X (formerly Twitter) asking them to demonstrate how the measures they have implemented around age verification meet these expectations.
Platforms like Reddit and MediaLab have received fines from the ICO for failing to “implement age‑assurance measures and for processing children’s personal information unlawfully in a way that potentially exposed children to inappropriate, harmful content”.
These measures are part of a wider push by the government to protect children from harmful and addictive online content, as concerns grow around the dangers of video-sharing and social media networks.
The ICO has also opened an investigation into the way TikTok processes children’s data within recommender systems. Information was also requested from Meta surrounding the processing of children’s data regarding Instagram’s recommender systems.
“With ever growing public concern, the status-quo is not working and industry must do more to protect children. You should act now to identify and implement current viable technologies to prevent children under your minimum age from accessing your service,” the letter stated.
“We expect industry to take urgent steps to meet this call to action and we will be monitoring practices to decide whether further regulatory action is necessary.”
