New Zealand Social Media Minimum Age Bill
New ZealandNew Zealand's under-16 ban would cover any platform with recommender feeds, endless scroll, likes, or disappearing stories, and would let a regulator order app stores and internet providers to cut the country off from a platform entirely.
Latest update
Introduced
Current position
Introduced; no first reading scheduled
What it does
Introduced on August 24, 2026 as bill 339-1, the Bill puts a duty on platform operators to take reasonable steps to stop under-16s holding accounts. Scope is defined by features rather than by labels, so recommender feeds, endless scroll, likes and view counts, and time-limited stories all bring a service in, along with AI companions built to simulate a personal relationship. Messaging, gaming, music, education, and health services are carved out. Operators cannot rely on formal identification or digital identity services alone and must offer other methods, which the Bill describes as age estimation from facial scanning or age inference from account and behavior data. Platforms must also produce annual child safety risk assessments covering everyone under 18, including a count of New Zealand children by age.
Why it matters
Enforcement runs through the Secretary of Internal Affairs, with penalties reaching 10 percent of global turnover and court orders that can require internet providers, app stores, and the platform itself to block every New Zealand user. Australia's ban gave governments the template, and this Bill adds the blocking powers and the age-guessing duties that come next. ACT and NZ First oppose it, so it will not reach a first reading before this Parliament ends.
Our take
Barring platforms from relying on ID alone sounds like a privacy win until you read what the alternatives are, which is scanning your face or profiling your behavior to guess your age. All three routes build another way to work out who you are, and the government keeps the power to order app stores and internet providers to make a platform vanish from the country.
Timeline
Introduced
Latest