Australia has doubled the maximum penalty for systematic failures under its under-16 social-media ban, yet a study suggests many teenagers still evade controls. For Europe, the lesson is that ambitious child-safety rules depend on credible verification, evidence and enforcement.
Australia has doubled the maximum penalty for systematic failures to enforce its social-media ban for children under 16, intensifying a closely watched experiment that European regulators are likely to study as they tighten age-assurance rules of their own.
The maximum fine will rise from A$49.5 million to A$99 million, while the country’s eSafety Commissioner will receive stronger powers to demand evidence from platforms and collect information from third parties. The regulator is examining compliance by Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok.
The decision follows evidence that formal account removals have not eliminated use. Platforms have deactivated or restricted about five million under-16 accounts, but a study of 408 adolescents found that 85% of 12- to 15-year-olds were still using social media three months after the ban. Two-thirds of those who evaded controls reportedly did so by entering a false age or submitting a selfie that was accepted as showing them to be at least 16.
That gap between compliance figures and actual behaviour is the central policy lesson. Governments can prohibit access and platforms can close accounts, but neither measure proves that children have stopped using the service.
Enforcement moves beyond promises
Australia’s higher fines are intended to change the cost calculation for technology companies. A platform facing only modest penalties may treat weak verification as a manageable compliance expense. A sanction approaching A$100 million, combined with evidence-gathering powers, creates a stronger incentive to redesign systems.
The information powers may matter more than the headline fine. Regulators need access to internal tests, error rates and data showing how age-assurance tools perform across different groups. Without that evidence, companies can point to the number of closed accounts while regulators struggle to measure false acceptances, repeat registrations or migration to secondary accounts.
Australia’s ban also faces a legal challenge from Reddit, which has raised free-expression concerns. That dispute highlights a second difficulty: age controls must be effective without becoming disproportionate identity checks for every adult user.
Europe is approaching the same problem differently
The EU has not adopted a single bloc-wide ban on social media for everyone under 16. It is instead building a layered system through the Digital Services Act, national age rules, child-safety guidance and technical work on privacy-preserving age verification.
The European Commission can investigate whether very large platforms have assessed and reduced risks to minors. National authorities retain important powers over child protection and consent. The result is more legally nuanced than Australia’s blanket threshold, but also more fragmented.
EU Today has reported that TikTok plans tighter age checks in Europe and that Brussels has increased pressure on Meta over children’s access to Facebook and Instagram. Australia’s experience suggests that announcements about improved detection should be judged by independent evidence of how often children still get through.
The verification dilemma
Age assurance can take several forms: identity documents, payment information, facial-age estimation, parental confirmation or behavioural signals. Every method brings trade-offs.
Document checks can exclude users who lack suitable identification and require sensitive data handling. Facial estimation can make errors, particularly around the relevant age threshold, and may raise biometric privacy concerns. Parental approval can be circumvented or unavailable. Behavioural inference can be opaque and intrusive.
The policy objective should therefore not be perfect certainty, which is unattainable, but a proportionate system that makes routine evasion materially harder while minimising data collection. Independent audits should publish false-acceptance and false-rejection rates. Users also need a rapid appeal when an adult is wrongly blocked or a child’s account is misclassified.
A ban can displace rather than remove risk
Restrictions may reduce exposure to addictive design, bullying and unsolicited contact. They may also push children towards smaller services, gaming chat, encrypted messaging or borrowed adult accounts that receive less scrutiny.
That makes the scope of regulation important. Focusing only on the largest named platforms can create incentives for risky features to migrate elsewhere. Australia is already considering protections for gaming and live-streaming services, where strangers may contact young users.
European policymakers should resist treating age verification as a complete child-safety policy. Default privacy settings, limits on recommender systems, restrictions on targeted advertising, effective reporting tools and rapid responses to grooming or abuse remain necessary even when a user has passed an age check.
Evidence before imitation
Australia’s experiment offers Europe a rare body of real-world evidence. Five million restricted accounts demonstrate significant intervention. Continued use among surveyed teenagers demonstrates that platform statistics alone can be misleading.
The right European response is neither to dismiss the ban as ineffective nor copy it without adaptation. Brussels should require platforms to disclose measurable outcomes, support privacy-preserving verification standards and give regulators enough access to test corporate claims.
Australia has now raised the financial stakes. Its next challenge is to show that higher penalties produce better systems rather than larger numbers of nominally closed accounts. Europe, considering its own restrictions, should watch that distinction closely.
