MANILA, Philippines – The Senate has approved a bill seeking to ban children below 18 from accessing social media and other digital services considered high-risk, introducing stricter age verification requirements and new obligations for technology companies, with a copy of the bill made available online this week.

Senate Bill No. 2424, or the proposed Safe Media Access and Responsible Technology for Kids in Digital Spaces (SMART KIDS) Act, takes a stricter approach than the House of Representatives’ version, which proposes restrictions for children aged 13 and below and tiered access for older minors.

A comparison of the original proposal and the Senate-approved bill reveals six major changes.

An outright ban for children below 18

The original proposal sought to prohibit children below 16 from accessing age-restricted social media platforms.

The approved version raises the age threshold to 18. The new version also explicitly states that the prohibition cannot be overridden by parental consent, authorization, or supervision.

So this means even 16- and 17-year-olds would be barred from covered platforms, with no provision for graduated access for older teenagers.

Expanded coverage to ‘high-risk digital services’

The approved bill introduces the term “high-risk digital services,” covering social media platforms and online gaming services with social networking functions.

These include features allowing users to communicate, maintain social connections, join online communities, or share user-generated content, including livestreams. Roblox and Gorebox are explicitly cited as examples.

These two games were tagged as potential avenues for youth radicalization and violent behavior; Roblox for its communication functions, and Gorebox for its supposed violent content.

However, the bill exempts email, certain private messaging services, educational platforms, digital news services, and professional collaboration tools.

There is also no minimum audience size or revenue threshold for coverage. Smaller livestreaming platforms and online communities could therefore be subject to the same requirements as major technology companies.

Government IDs required for age verification

Unlike the original proposal, which allowed various age-assurance methods, the approved bill requires primary authentication through PhilSys or another government-issued ID. Age estimation and other verification technologies may supplement, but cannot replace, government ID authentication.

Simply entering a birthday would no longer suffice. As a measure of data minimization, platforms are prohibited from retaining copies of government IDs and should receive only information that users meet the age requirement.

Nevertheless, this requirement raises questions about online anonymity, surveillance risks, and access for adults without acceptable identification documents.

Restrictions on addictive social media features

The new version introduces requirements for platforms to mitigate potentially addictive design features, specifically mentioning autoplay, infinite scrolling, push notifications, engagement metrics, and algorithmic amplification, also requiring “safety-by-design” and “privacy-by-default” protections.

However, it does not specify how exactly such mitigation can be enforced nor does it delve into technical benchmarks for determining whether these features have been sufficiently mitigated. The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) will be tasked with monitoring for compliance.

Violating platforms face fines ranging from P5 million to P20 million per violation, with additional daily penalties of up to P100,000 for continuing violations.

Emergency response to harmful content

The approved bill requires platforms to take immediate, proportionate action against harmful content following detection or credible reports.

Measures may include suspending livestreams, removing content, restricting its distribution, or stopping algorithmic amplification.

Foreign platforms must maintain an emergency escalation channel and designate a legal representative or authorized contact in the Philippines. Notably, the approved version drops the original proposal’s explicit requirement for foreign platforms to establish a physical local office.

The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) must petition a Regional Trial Court, through the Office of the Solicitor General, to restrict an entire platform — a change from the unilateral banning actions that the DICT has performed, highlighted by the controversial Discord ban.

However, the DICT may still issue account-specific disabling orders if continuing harm can be proven. – Rappler.com