Keir Starmer’s resignation on 22 June  leaves social media policy in the melting pot for his successor, widely  expected to be Andy Burnham, the former Mayor of Great Manchester.  The so-called social media ban – age-restricting accounts for under 16s -  is still work in progress.   We highlight the technological challenges that will drop into the inbox of the new Prime Minister. 

Andy Burnham will take over at a crucial point when policy decisions on  the enforcement of  a social media ban  will be consequential for the future.  Age-based restrictions  will fundamentally alter the way we as citizens interact with the systems that we use to communicate with others.  Everyone, even the Prime Minister himself, will have to age-verify to use their social media account. The technical  implementation is often portrayed as a minor detail, but nothing could be further from the truth. Social media platforms are a complex engineered environment and the new layer of technology demanded by these policies is likely to produce negative externalities.  

The government is  balanced on a see-saw between, on the one hand,  domestic pressure from parents organisations, and on the other hand,  technologies that seem to offer an easy solution, but come with difficult trade-offs. Parents are  understandably concerned about children’s screen time and exposure to harmful and toxic content, and they want legislative back-up, but the technological solutions are privacy-intrusive and fail to solve the actual problem that the parents want dealt with. It's a circle that is very hard to square. 

Andy Burnham had an early brush with tech policy in 2008, as a Minister in Gordon’s Brown’s government, when he was involved in an early attempt to broker agreements on copyright  between Internet Service Providers and the music  industry. However, the policy lead was taken over by Lord Mandelson who became Business Secretary in October of the same year. The subsequent legislation, the Digital Economy Act 2010, was successfully challenged at Judicial Review and never implemented. It was an early lesson that simple solutions can be dangerous in tech policy. 

The  present situation

The official  announcement of the government’s intention to proceed  with the social media ban was made by Keir Starmer, as Prime Minister,  on 15th June. It followed a consultation,  Growing up in the Online World, to which there were 116,000 responses. The government claims that  9 out of 10 parents who responded support the move. Overall, the announcement was issued in a hurry and lacks detail, but here’s what we know. 

The 15th June announcement puts into action the framework that was enshrined  in law at the end of April, via the new  Section 214A of the Online Safety Act.   It confirmed there will be a blanket ban  on under 16s accessing social media together with further age-based restrictions on specified features such as live video and audio. The measures are supported by another legal change, Article 8ZA of UK GDPR, that enables the Secretary of State to provide for  age verification as the means of carrying out age checks. The government is also thinking about age-restricting virtual private networks, although this would be additional to the measures proposed in the law.  See UK to have children's social media ban by summer 2027 for more detail. 

Timing is the first of the challenges for Andy Burnham. The government has a deadline of 29 July 2027, with a backstop of December 2027, to lay the necessary Regulations before Parliament -  inserted into law via the Childrens Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 S.71  .  However, the 15 June announcement  tightened the  implementation timetable, bringing forward the legislative deadline to December 2026, aiming for  age restrictions to begin in Spring 2027. This is an extremely ambitious schedule,  given the anticipated complexity of the new statutory requirements, and the introduction of age-checking technology at scale. Equally worrying is that  the Regulations will be Secondary Legislation  and there will be no Parliamentary scrutiny.  

It is not clear whether Mr Burnham’s new government is bound by the  15 June  announcement. However, it is  bound by the schedule established in  law.

Ofcom’s additional duties

The next challenge is regulatory oversight. The social media ban creates a new suite of new duties for  Ofcom. The regulator has complained about the “additional burden” on top of existing duties under the Online Safety Act, and  is asking for funding to cover the  extra workload. 

The Secretary of State – currently Liz Kendall -  has signalled her commitment to cover the cost. She wrote in a letter to Ofcom, that  “the government will ensure Ofcom has the funding it needs”. 

It  appears that the regulator does not have any further information at this stage, including how much funding it will receive to cover the new work. In its response, Ofcom says it is waiting for more detail  from Liz Kendall so that it can draw up a business case, implying that the budget has not been set. 

Ofcom wants to know the government’s priorities and  specific requirements in order to develop the business case. Concerns include conflicting age gates for under 16s in the new law, and under 18s in the Online Safety Act; and how DSIT envisages new measures on chatbots, that were also part of the 15 June announcement. This will have to be in the Regulations set before Parliament by December.

Liz Kendall  also told Ofcom  to work closely with the Information Commissioner’s Office [ICO]  to “ensure synergy with data protection legislation”.

Privacy and innovation challenges 

This is where we get to the heart of the challenges for the new Burnham government. Privacy issues with age checking data  have been highlighted by many experts. Age estimation technology entails collection of  a user's personal data online – the type and volume of data collected depends on the actual technique and the individual system.  A key concern is the potential for high volumes of data processing unconnected to age,  and associated security issues. Everyone who uses social media, including adults, will have to verify their age in order to use a social media platform. The new Prime Minister himself will only be able to use his social media accounts if he verifies his age. 

In her letter to Ofcom, Liz Kendall, has dropped a hint that she expects age restrictions to be enforced by showing passports and driving licences. Processing and storage of  this data at scale could pose a serious security risk. Ms Kendall's expectation should be clarified as soon as possible by Mr Burnham’s incoming government.  Meanwhile, Ofcom warns that implementing age checks for 16 year olds will be more difficult than for 18 year olds, especially those on the boundary of 15 and 16. The issues it cites are not only accuracy in estimating age, but also privacy.  

Age estimation systems are used as an alternative to documentary checks. The idea is to try to work out a person’s likely age by analysing statistical patterns in data. Typically, it  could look at the pages and videos viewed, typing patterns, swiping movement, contacts,  and also biometric data like face scans and voice.  That means new categories of personal data will be  collected by online platforms and their third party age checking providers, from which they could create profiles of the individual that go well beyond age. The concern is that this  data could be re-purposed for commercial use or surveillance. It could be sold on to advertisers, or even used for AI training. The Burnham government should obtain answers to this question. 

The new buzzword in this field is privacy preservation,  a technical concept that would minimise  the amount of data transferred between third parties. One way of doing this involves a layered approached where age assurance measures could be implemented at the  network, service or device level.  

Innovation in this space is creating new solutions backed by  different industrial and political interests. The US government and certain big tech companies are keen on so-called zero-knowledge-proof solutions, which  avoid the need to upload  ID. This could happen at device level, where the user’s age could be held on the phone or tablet, and confirmation could be passed to a platform or third party without handing over the user’s data. However, it has other implications because it effectively puts more power in the hands of the smartphone makers. 

Trade offs

Our government is not alone is wanting the simple solution of a social media ban, but, like all of them, it will will have to face the fact that it is dealing with a complex engineered system where technology choices bring  trade offs. The government will want to protect British children and citizens against the more highly intrusive functionality deployed in these systems. It may also wish to create a buffer against the power of the big tech  corporations, who stand to gain even more power than they currently have.

Overall, the need to match political demands with technological feasibility for implementation at scale is going to be a significant challenge that should not be underestimated. Andy Burnham’s decisions on age checks will be consequential, and certainly not a minor detail.

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See also Social media ban for kids: simple message, tough choices

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