Age verification: Pakistan Says No Law Makes Apps Check Kids

Pakistan's internet regulator stood in front of a high court and admitted something most parents would never guess. No law in the country requires a social media app to check how old your child is. And the regulator says it doesn't have the power to make them.

If your kid has ever signed up for an app by

If your kid has ever signed up for an app by tapping "I'm over thirteen," this story is about you. Most of us assume someone, somewhere, is checking that box. That assumption is comforting. It's also mostly wrong. According to Pakistan's newspaper Dawn, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, known as the P.T.A., told the Islamabad High Court it lacks the legal authority to force age checks. It also said it can't restrict social media for kids under sixteen. The regulator didn't say it wouldn't act. It said the law never gave it the tools. So if the watchdog can't do it, who's actually responsible for keeping kids off these platforms?

Start with the law itself. Pakistan's main cybercrime law dates back to twenty sixteen. The P.T.A. points out that it says nothing at all about users under sixteen. Not a ban. Not an age limit. Nothing. And the regulator argued that age checks can't simply be ordered into existence. It told the court a real system would need its own legal framework. That framework would have to spell out how ages get verified. It would have to name who does the checking. It would have to say what happens to the identity data, how privacy is protected, and what penalties apply. For lawyers and compliance teams, that's a checklist of everything an age verification law has to answer. For a parent, it's a reminder. Proving your child's age means handing someone their face, their I.D., or both. Somebody has to be accountable for that. Up next: Age Verification Pakistan Says No Law Makes Apps Check Kids.

Pakistan is building a new body to fill the gap. A twenty twenty-five amendment to that cybercrime law creates a dedicated social media regulator. But it hasn't formally launched yet. Until it does, the P.T.A. says it's covering some duties on what it calls a best-efforts basis. Best efforts. That's the phrase standing between a lot of kids and the open internet right now.

Then there's the technical side

Then there's the technical side. The big apps aren't licensed by the P.T.A. at all. They simply run over the internet, from outside the country. And most websites today are encrypted. That's the little padlock you see in your browser. It means the regulator can often see which site you're visiting, but not which page or post. So blocking one harmful post can mean knocking out the entire site. The same lock that protects your bank login also makes targeted blocking much harder.

Zoom out, and Pakistan isn't alone. According to industry trackers, fifteen countries have already passed age verification laws for social media. About twenty more are working on them. Australia launched the world's first nationwide social media ban for minors in December twenty twenty-five. Indonesia, Brazil, and Malaysia already have age check laws in force. And in June twenty twenty-five, nearly two dozen ministers from thirteen European Union countries said their existing rules weren't enough. They demanded mandatory age checks. Even Europe, with some of the strictest tech rules anywhere, is still building the legal foundation.

Not everyone buys the P.T.A.'s explanation, though. Critics point to its own track record. The regulator has blocked more than five thousand websites hosting child sexual abuse material. So it clearly can act when it decides something matters. Could it be leaning on legal gaps to avoid pushing platforms harder? There's another wrinkle. Research shows kids can easily slip past age limits. And when they're pushed off mainstream apps, some move to smaller, less policed corners of the internet. A locked front door doesn't help much if the back window leads somewhere worse.