Australia’s Under-16 Social Media Ban: Early Age Check Failures
Australia’s first national ban on social media for under-16s is facing significant challenges, according to testers who contributed to its design. In a follow-up study, fifty accounts claiming to be 16 years old successfully signed up across nine out of ten platforms covered by the law, with none requesting proof of age.
July 7, 2026 – 9:03 am
The scheme, implemented on December 10, 2025, highlights a critical gap in regulation. While much focus has been on photo-based age estimation, the testers pinpoint an issue further back—the initial vetting stage intended to identify potential minors for further scrutiny. This stage, based on general online activity patterns, proved ineffective at catching young users.
Andrew Hammond, a director at Melbourne’s KJR testing firm, which conducted the government’s original age-assurance trial in 2024-25, emphasized this point:
"You should be asked to demonstrate how old you are, and not once have we been asked to verify our age or use age-assurance measures."
The 50 test accounts remain active across various platforms including Meta’s Instagram and Facebook, Snap’s Snapchat, TikTok, Alphabet’s YouTube, and others. Only Kick, an Australian live-streaming platform, refused to open an account without proof of age, demonstrating the technical feasibility of age checks when platforms choose to enforce them.
This finding reinforces compliance concerns that led regulators to issue notices to Meta, TikTok, and YouTube earlier this year. Australia’s law prohibits children under 16 from having accounts on ten named platforms and requires companies to take "reasonable steps" to prevent their access.
eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, the country’s online safety watchdog, had previously reported that millions of under-16 accounts were removed from these platforms ahead of the deadline. The Act threatens fines up to A$54.6 million (approximately US$36 million) for companies that systematically fail to enforce the ban, with proposals to double this ceiling and expand the government’s powers pending in the Senate.
KJR’s original trial concluded that age-assurance technology could work under careful selection and implementation. However, critics warned at the time that the test did not simulate real-world circumvention methods, such as a 14-year-old simply entering a false birthday. These concerns have been borne out by recent findings.
A separate study reported in late June revealed that over 85% of Australians believe social media companies should do more to protect young users from harmful content online.