British communications regulator Ofcom yesterday published a rapid assessment of how social media firms could reliably determine whether someone is aged 16 or over, ahead of the British government and Parliament deciding how the UK’s social media ban will work in practice.

In June, the United Kingdom government announced a social media ban for under-16s and said the use of highly effective age assurance by tech firms — a stronger test than the “reasonable steps” criteria applied in Australia — will be critical for the ban’s successful implementation in the UK, Ofcom said in a statement.

To help inform Parliament’s consideration of the government’s forthcoming detailed rules for the ban, the Secretary of State had asked Ofcom to carry out a rapid assessment of what highly effective age assurance could look like for determining whether someone is 16 or over.

“We have identified four age assurance methods that are currently capable of being highly effective at determining whether a user is 16 or over: photo ID matching, digital ID services, banking-based checks and facial age estimation,” the regulator said in the statement.

The UK government has said it intends to publish its first set of regulations for the ban before the end of 2026.

Ofcom said it is already developing draft guidance for platforms, and will consult on this as soon as the government’s regulations are laid in parliament.

While it will, unequivocally, be the responsibility of regulated services themselves to meet their current and future online safety duties, including by using highly effective age checks, a separate Ofcom report, published yesterday, identifies that app stores could also have an important role to play.