New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced Monday that his government will introduce legislation barring children under 16 from using social media, with penalties reaching up to 10% of a platform’s global revenue for noncompliance.
The bill would require high-risk platforms, including Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and Facebook, to take “reasonable steps” to verify that users are over age 16. Verification methods under consideration include facial age estimation, digital ID services, formal identification documents and existing account information.
Beyond age checks, the legislation would obligate platforms popular with minors to continuously assess the risks they pose to young users and report on how those risks are being identified and mitigated. Notably, the framework would extend to emerging technologies such as AI companion apps, according to a press release from Luxon’s office.
The bill also proposes establishing a new online safety regulator within New Zealand’s Department of Internal Affairs, tasked with monitoring platform compliance and enforcing penalties when companies fall short.
“We simply cannot accept the harm being done to a generation of New Zealand children,” Luxon said in a statement, citing social media’s role in exposing kids to harmful content, addictive design, and pressures affecting family life, mental health, sleep, and education.
Part of a Global Trend
The proposal faces opposition from other New Zealand politicians, and it remains uncertain whether it will become law. New Zealand joins a wave of countries pursuing similar restrictions, including several European nations, Turkey, Brazil, Indonesia and Canada, each at different stages of legislating or enforcing youth social media limits.
Australia was the first country to implement a ban for users under 16, but independent studies have found the law difficult to enforce in practice, with many young teens still active on the affected platforms. That enforcement gap is likely to shape debate over New Zealand’s proposal, particularly around the technical feasibility of age verification tools like facial estimation and digital ID checks.
For security and compliance teams at platform companies, the proposal signals growing regulatory pressure toward mandatory age assurance systems and expanded risk reporting obligations, trends that are likely to spread regardless of this specific bill’s fate.