The UK Information Commissioner's Office reported that improvements to platform safeguards introduced between April 2024 and July 2026 have affected close to five million child users, with enforcement action including fines of £14.47 million against Reddit and £247,590 against MediaLab for unlawful use of children's personal information, and commitments secured from Snapchat to significantly strengthen age assurance measures to prevent underage access. The ICO also issued an open letter to social media and video-sharing platforms setting out expectations on age assurance and requiring six high-risk services to evidence compliance.
Age assurance at the account-creation stage is a structural control, but it does not address the conduct of users once they are inside the platform. Real-time monitoring of direct messages for grooming, sextortion and CSAM distribution provides the operational safeguard that complements age-gating by detecting predatory behaviour directed at verified child accounts and blocking hostile contact from adults who have misrepresented their own age or who hold legitimate accounts but engage in abuse, ensuring that regulatory pressure on platforms to verify age at entry is matched by technology that protects verified child users from harm during use.
