The Online Safety Act, what it means for your child in 2026

Short answer. The Online Safety Act 2023 is real UK law. It places duties on social media platforms to protect users, including specific children’s safety duties that came into force on 25 July 2025. Ofcom enforces it. We’ve read the legislation and the Ofcom roadmap so you don’t have to. Here’s the short version: the Act does not set a UK statutory minimum age for social media, so the practical decision still sits with parents, and the simplest move is to delay the smartphone. The wider age-limit picture is at social media age limits UK.

What the Act actually does

The Online Safety Act 2023 received Royal Assent on 26 October 2023. It places legal duties on online services that allow user-generated content (so the big social media platforms, video-sharing sites, search engines, messaging services with public-facing features) to assess the risks their service poses, particularly to children, and to take proportionate steps to manage those risks.

Three things to hold on to. The Act applies to platforms operating in the UK, wherever they are based. It is enforced by Ofcom, not the police or the courts in the first instance. And it works by duties on the platform, not by criminalising what users do.

The full text is on legislation.gov.uk. The House of Commons Library briefings are the readable explainer.

The children’s safety duties

This is the part that matters most for a UK family.

Platforms that are likely to be accessed by children have to assess the specific risks their service poses to under-18s and take proportionate steps to keep them safe. In practice, three duties are doing the heavy lifting.

Age assurance. Platforms must use “highly effective” age assurance to stop children from accessing content that is harmful to them (pornography, content promoting suicide or self-harm, certain other categories). Self-declared birthdays are not enough. Ofcom’s published guidance sets out what counts as highly effective.

Age-appropriate experience. Where a platform admits users under 18, the experience must be designed for them. That means higher-protection defaults, less aggressive recommendation algorithms, and reduced exposure to “primary priority” and “priority” content categories that the Act defines.

Reporting and transparency. Users (and adults acting for children) must have a clear way to report harmful content, and the platform has to act on it. Larger platforms have additional transparency reporting duties to Ofcom.

The children’s safety duties came into force on 25 July 2025. That’s the date the practical compliance ask started landing on the platforms.

What Ofcom requires of platforms

Ofcom is the regulator. The published Ofcom Online Safety roadmap on ofcom.org.uk sets out the phased implementation:

• Illegal harms codes of practice, in force from March 2025.
• Children’s access assessments and risk assessments through spring and summer 2025.
• Children’s safety duties from 25 July 2025.
• Continued enforcement and updates through 2026.

Ofcom can fine platforms up to £18 million or 10% of global annual revenue, whichever is higher, for serious breaches. It can also seek court orders to block access to non-compliant services from the UK in the most serious cases. The point is that this is not toothless.

Why this still leaves the practical decision with parents

Here’s the bit that catches a lot of UK parents off guard. The Online Safety Act does not set a national minimum age for social media. It doesn’t ban under-13s from Instagram, doesn’t raise the age for TikTok, doesn’t stop a 12-year-old opening a Snapchat account.

What it does is regulate how the platform must behave once it admits children. The minimum age on WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat remains 13 (set by the platform’s own terms). The Act now requires those platforms to verify age more robustly and to give under-18s a safer experience, but it does not say “no one under 16”.

So the practical decision, do I let my 12-year-old open an account, is still a family decision. The Act makes the platform safer if she does. It doesn’t make the choice for you.

The simplest way to enforce a delay on social media is to delay the smartphone. The four apps live on a smartphone. A basic phone like the Nokia 3210 cannot run any of them. The conversation script for the kitchen-table version of that decision is at /switching-kit.

How it interacts with the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026

These are two different bits of law doing two different jobs.

The Online Safety Act 2023 regulates the platforms. It is about what TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and the rest must do to protect children.

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 (Royal Assent 29 April 2026) puts statutory weight behind the Department for Education’s guidance on mobile phones in schools. From 29 June 2026, schools in England must have regard to it. The plain-English explainer is at /notes/school-phone-ban-2026-explained.

One regulates the apps. The other regulates the school day. Neither, on its own, decides what happens in your child’s bedroom at 10pm. That’s still you.

What changes practically for a UK family in 2026

Three things, in order of how much they matter.

Age-appropriate defaults are now the platform’s legal duty. If your child does have an Instagram or a TikTok account with their real date of birth, the under-18 protections should now be on automatically. Check them, because the platform can only apply them if the birthday on file is honest.

Age-assurance is being rolled out. Expect more friction at sign-up and at account-edit, particularly for things like adult content. This is the Act working as designed.

The core decision still sits with you. The Act doesn’t decide when your child gets a smartphone, gets WhatsApp, or gets Instagram. The honest evidence on what those apps tend to do to UK adolescents is at /the-risks. The practical answers are at /best-simple-phones, /switching-kit, and /social-media-age-limits-uk.

Common questions

What is the Online Safety Act? A 2023 UK law that places duties on social media platforms operating in the UK to protect users, including specific children’s safety duties. Ofcom is the regulator implementing it through 2025 and 2026.

What changed for children in 2025-2026? The children’s safety duties came into force on 25 July 2025. Platforms must use proper age assurance, apply age-appropriate access, and default under-18s to higher-protection settings.

Does the Act ban social media for under-16s? No. It does not set a UK statutory minimum age for social media. Platforms still set their own minimums (most are 13). The Act enforces protection duties at whatever age the platform admits children.

What can a UK parent actually do today? Delay the smartphone (no smartphone, no social media), use the platform’s own age controls strictly, and the Knock /switching-kit script for the conversation. The honest evidence on phone harms is at /the-risks.

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Sources: Online Safety Act 2023 (legislation.gov.uk); Ofcom Online Safety implementation roadmap (ofcom.org.uk); House of Commons Library briefings; and the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026.