UAE Bans Social Media Accounts for Children Under 15

The United Arab Emirates has approved one of the clearest youth social-media age rules now on the global policy map: no personal social media accounts for children under 15.

The Cabinet resolution, announced by the official Emirates News Agency on Thursday, says social media platforms available in the UAE, or directed at users in the country, must prevent children below 15 from creating, using or operating personal accounts.

The rule also reaches beyond account creation. Under-15s are prohibited from accessing full platform features including social interaction, publishing, commenting, sharing, joining public groups, open channels or large-scale interactive spaces.

What happened

The UAE Cabinet, chaired by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, issued a resolution regulating children's access to social media platforms. WAM says the resolution is part of a wider child digital safety framework covering child rights, cybercrime rules, data protection, media regulation and online safety.

The resolution applies broadly to platforms that allow accounts or personal profiles, social interaction, content publishing or sharing, or algorithmic display, ranking or recommendations. That means the rule is not only about one named app; it is about the category of services that function as social media inside the UAE market.

What platforms must do

Platforms are required to implement technical and administrative measures to enforce the under-15 prohibition. The resolution says self-declared age will not be enough.

Instead, platforms must use effective and reliable age verification mechanisms, including digital identity verification, AI-supported technologies such as biometric tools, or other mechanisms approved by the Child Digital Safety Council.

The resolution also requires platforms to monitor under-15 accounts created in violation of the rule and take immediate action to suspend or disable them. Non-compliant platforms can face warnings, administrative penalties, partial blocking or full blocking by the relevant UAE authorities.

What changes for 15- and 16-year-olds

The rule does not treat every teenager the same. Children between 15 and 16 may use social media, but only with enhanced protections applied to their accounts.

Those protections include age-appropriate content classification and restriction, limits on high-risk features such as interaction with unknown users, usage-time regulation and parental control tools. The resolution also says parental consent does not create an exemption from the core restrictions.

What is confirmed

Confirmed: the UAE Cabinet has issued the resolution and WAM has published the policy details. Confirmed: the minimum age is 15. Confirmed: platforms get a transition period of up to 12 months to bring operations into compliance.

Also confirmed: the rule is part of a wider international trend. Australia has moved toward a minimum-age social media regime. The UK and Canada have also pushed or considered sharper restrictions for younger users.

What is not clear yet

The law's hardest details are still implementation details. The resolution names digital identity verification and biometric or AI-supported age tools as possible mechanisms, but readers should watch what regulators approve in practice.

The question is not only whether platforms can identify under-15 users. It is whether they can do it without collecting more sensitive data than necessary from children, teens and adults who may all be asked to prove their age.

Why it matters

The child-safety argument is straightforward: governments are trying to reduce children's exposure to addictive feeds, inappropriate content, unsafe interactions, tracking-based advertising and data collection.

The tradeoff is more complicated. A serious age ban usually requires serious age checks. Weak checks are easy to evade, while stronger checks can push platforms toward identity systems, face estimation, government IDs or third-party age-assurance providers.

That is why the UAE move matters beyond one country. The global social-media debate is shifting from parental advice to platform-level enforcement, and from screen-time guidance to age-verification infrastructure.

NoDechev rating: confirmed policy. The ban is official; the practical test is how platforms verify age, protect privacy and avoid turning child safety into broad identity checks for the internet.