The UAE Cabinet chaired by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has issued a decisive regulatory decision on regulating children's access to social media platforms.

The official statement issued by the Council on Thursday, June 18, said that this step reflects the country's orientation towards consolidating an advanced legislative model to protect children in the digital space, and enhancing their quality of life by building a safe and balanced digital environment that balances enabling young people with technology and protecting them from the risks of excessive use.

Bans and restrictions

The UAE decision set the minimum age for using social media platforms at 15 years, and prohibited those below this age from creating or operating any personal accounts or accessing full interactive features such as posting, commenting, and joining open channels.

The terms of the published decree clarified that parental consent is not considered as an exception to bypassing this ban, while the text allows children between the ages of 15 and 16 to use the platforms, provided that their accounts are subject to special protection measures that include classifying content, disabling the feature of interacting with anonymous people, and activating parental controls.

Verification Mechanisms and Penalties

The decision obliges all social media platforms operating in the UAE or directed to users in the country to implement effective and reliable mechanisms to verify the user's age, based on digital identity or technologies supported by artificial intelligence and biometric means.

The text of the decision stressed the prohibition of relying on "age self-declaration" as a means of verification, while obliging platforms to immediately disable violating accounts, and completely refrain from targeting children with targeted ads based on tracking and behavioral profiling or exploiting their data for commercial purposes.

The Cabinet assigned the tasks of monitoring and supervising the compliance of digital platforms to the National Media Authority and the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority and Digital Government, each according to its competence.

According to the powers granted to the regulatory authorities under the decision, the authorities have the authority to take punitive measures ranging from warnings and imposing administrative sanctions, to partial or total blocking of violating platforms, while granting companies a transition period not exceeding 12 months to reconcile their technical and regulatory conditions, while the "Digital Child Safety Council" periodically assesses risks.

The UAE's proactive move comes amid a growing global trend and fears, as Australia and Britain have banned children from accessing social media in an effort to prevent children and teens from becoming addicted to social media and exposed to inappropriate content.