Upon updating their device software, users will be faced with a message which says: “UK law requires you to confirm you are an adult to change content restrictions.”<\/p>\n
Ofcom added new rules to the Online Safety Act<\/a> in 2025 which forced tech firms to strengthen child safety protections, however that does not currently cover bringing in age checks at a device level.<\/p>\n But an Ofcom spokesperson added it had worked closely with Apple and other services to ensure the rules “can be applied in a variety of contexts in order to ensure users are protected”.<\/p>\n Apple will be able to check if customers already have an existing account or payment method on file to confirm their age, as well as in some instances using the length of time a user has had their account.<\/p>\n According to its support page, children under 13 will also not be able to create an account without a guardian.<\/p>\n Laws introduced in 2025<\/a> already require certain websites and platforms, such as those showing pornography, to implement age checks for users in the UK.<\/p>\n This led to backlash from some campaigners who argued handing over personal data was a breach of privacy and that data was at risk of being hacked.<\/p>\n Apple’s move follows a wider debate in the industry over how to keep young people away from harmful content online and the impact social media can have on children. <\/p>\n The UK government is trialling a test<\/a> which will see 300 teens have their social apps disabled entirely, blocked overnight or capped to one hour’s use – with some also seeing no such changes at all – in order to compare their experiences.<\/p>\n The test will run alongside the government’s consultation <\/a>asking whether the UK should follow in Australia’s footsteps<\/a> by making it illegal for under-16s to have access to many social media sites.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Upon updating their device software, users will be faced with a message which says: “UK law requires you…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-494764","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}