What it means for 3.5 million Indians within the nation
4 min learnUp to date: Jun 18, 2026 08:21 PM IST
The United Arab Emirates Cupboard has accredited a decision banning kids below the age of 15 from creating or utilizing private accounts on social media platforms, with parental or caregiver consent explicitly rejected as a legitimate exemption, Khaleej Instances reported on Thursday.
The decision, chaired by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, builds on Federal Decree-Regulation No. 26 of 2025 on Little one Digital Security, which entered into power on January 1, 2026. Youngsters aged 15 to 16 will likely be permitted to make use of social media platforms solely with enhanced protecting measures utilized to their accounts, together with age-appropriate content material classification, restricted high-risk options, regulated utilization time, and parental management instruments, whereas a separate provision restricts the gathering of non-public information of youngsters below 13 with out verifiable parental consent.
Platforms have till December 31, 2026, to adjust to the brand new necessities, with the Telecommunications and Digital Authorities Regulatory Authority (TDRA) overseeing enforcement.
What adjustments for households
The decision goes additional than what dad and mom may count on. Even when a caregiver offers their consent, their permission can’t be used as a legitimate exemption from the restrictions set within the decision.
The decision locations energetic tasks on dad and mom and guardians who are actually legally obliged to oversee their kids’s digital exercise. The regulation additionally furnishes them with instruments to information their kids on accountable digital engagement.
What platforms should now do?
Social media platforms are required to have dependable and correct age verification programs. Corporations should monitor non-compliant accounts and take instant motion involving the enforcement of legal guidelines. The UAE will give Social media platforms as much as 12 months to implement the brand new requirements, in coordination with the authorities.
The regulation applies to any digital platform that operates in or has customers within the UAE, no matter the place the corporate is located.
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Why this issues for Indians
The UAE Cupboard decision immediately impacts an estimated 3.5 million Indians dwelling within the nation, the UAE’s largest expatriate neighborhood, together with many households with school-age kids.
The transfer differs from India’s present digital security framework. Beneath the Digital Private Information Safety Act, 2023, anybody below 18 is classed as a baby, and platforms should get hold of parental consent earlier than processing kids’s private information.
Nevertheless, India doesn’t presently prohibit social media use by minors. Discussions round age-based restrictions have emerged lately, together with proposals in Karnataka and observations by courts and policymakers on little one on-line security.
The UAE’s stricter strategy, significantly its determination to not enable parental consent as an exemption, comes as governments worldwide debate how finest to control kids’s entry to social media.
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A worldwide wave of restrictions
The UAE has joined the rising listing of nations -Australia, Indonesia, Turkey, Greece, France, Denmark and a number of others- who tightened little one inhabitants’s entry to social media.
The UAE’s strategy is noteworthy for its emphasis on prevention over punishment and its clear, direct rejection of parental consent as overriding.
Authorized specialists acknowledged that this decision is completely different. Whereas older legal guidelines responded to the hurt that occurred, the Little one Digital Security Regulation is designed to forestall it.
(The article was curated by Seekriti Saha, who’s an intern at The Indian Specific)
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