The UAE has officially rolled out new regulations prohibiting children under 15 from owning or operating personal social media accounts. While the primary legal responsibility for enforcing these rules—such as implementing robust age-verification systems like facial recognition or digital ID linking—lies with tech platforms, authorities are stressing that parents play a vital role. Officials from the Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority (TDRA) are specifically warning parents against bypassing these measures by creating accounts on behalf of their children, as doing so undermines the very safety the law seeks to provide.

For teenagers aged 15 and 16, the law allows social media usage provided that platforms integrate mandatory parental controls. Parents are encouraged to actively utilize these tools to monitor screen time, filter content, and manage privacy settings. Interestingly, the regulations do not strictly ban children from appearing in digital content; if a parent manages the account entirely and the child is simply participating in purposeful content creation without having direct access to the platform, it remains permissible. The goal of these measures is to shield minors from online risks like predatory interactions and inappropriate material while ensuring that any digital presence remains under adult supervision.