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Part of Age by age guidance: why there is no age table
Age by age guidance laws: how to tell rules apart
Age by age guidance laws refer to different kinds of rules, not one readiness test. Learn what each covers and where parents can check the current wording.
Ask what the legal age is for something and you will get four confident and contradictory answers, because four different systems are answering a question nobody asked precisely. Age by age guidance laws are easier to make sense of when you first identify which kind of rule you are looking at.
None of them was designed to tell you whether your own child is ready. That is worth knowing before you spend an evening hunting for the number, because the number, once found, will not settle the argument you are actually having.
What to take away
- Several different kinds of age rule share the same word, and they do different jobs. Knowing which one you are looking at saves most of the confusion.
- The figures differ too. The United States treats children under 13 differently under COPPA, the European Union's default age of digital consent is 16, and ratings bodies such as the ESRB and PEGI use their own tiers. None of these is an assessment of a particular child, and none promises safety on either side of the line.
- Rules differ by country, they change, and the current wording is what counts. Check it with the body that publishes the rule rather than with a summary of it.
- Where a child may be in immediate danger, contact emergency services first. That comes before working out what any rule says.
Four rules wearing the same word
Who sets it
- The age in a service's own terms
- The company
- The age at which a service must treat a user's data differently
- Legislators and regulators, differently in each country
- The age rating on an app, a game or a film
- Ratings bodies and app stores, by their own published criteria
- The law that protects children from harm
- Criminal law, differently in each jurisdiction
What it is really about
- The age in a service's own terms
- The terms it wants to trade on, plus whatever the law where it operates requires of it
- The age at which a service must treat a user's data differently
- How personal information about children may be collected and used
- The age rating on an app, a game or a film
- Content, and what a typical child of that age is thought able to handle
- The law that protects children from harm
- Conduct by other people, including adults, and it does not depend on what a platform allows
Most household arguments are about the first row. Most of the things that seriously matter are in the last one, and the last one does not move when a birthday passes.
Four rules, four deciders
Service terms
- Who sets it
- The company
- What it covers
- Trading terms
- Varies by country
- Partly
- Moves on birthday
- Yes
Data age
- Who sets it
- Regulators
- What it covers
- Data collection
- Varies by country
- Yes
- Moves on birthday
- Yes
Content rating
- Who sets it
- Ratings bodies
- What it covers
- Content suitability
- Varies by country
- Partly
- Moves on birthday
- Yes
Child protection law
- Who sets it
- Criminal law
- What it covers
- Conduct by others
- Varies by country
- Yes
- Moves on birthday
- No
An age minimum is not a readiness test
This is the misreading that causes the most trouble in both directions.
A parent who treats the minimum as a green light hands over an account the day it becomes permissible and expects the number to have done some work. It has not. Nothing about that date was calculated with reference to their child.
A parent who treats it as a safety guarantee assumes that below the line is protected and above it is fine. Neither is true. Services are used by people who are not the age their account claims, in both directions, and the account age mostly determines which defaults are applied rather than who turns up in the messages.
What actually tells you something is behavior you can observe, and age-by-age guidance sets out the signals worth watching. Two children the same age are frequently in different places, which no rule can accommodate and you can.
Why the answer changes depending on where you stand
Three things move independently, which is why searching for one number produces so much noise.
Country. Rules for children's data, for what platforms must do, and for age assurance are set nationally or regionally, and they do not agree with each other. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission enforces COPPA, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which draws its line at 13. In the European Union, the GDPR sets an age of digital consent that defaults to 16, though member states may lower it to 13. In the United Kingdom, the ICO's Age Appropriate Design Code sets design duties for services children are likely to use. A figure quoted in an article written elsewhere may be accurate and irrelevant to you.
Time. This area has been actively legislated for several years running, and both proposals and enacted rules get reported in the same tone, so a headline about a change is not evidence that anything currently applies.
The service. A platform may set its own line above whatever the law requires, may apply different defaults to younger accounts, and may change either at any time without telling anybody.
The practical consequence is that a number you read anywhere, including a figure on this page, should be treated as possibly out of date. Note the date on the source and read its own scope, then go back to the body that publishes the rule for the current wording.
Where to find what currently applies
Go to the body that publishes the rule rather than to a summary of it.
Go to the body that publishes the rule rather than to a summary of it.
- For what a service currently requires, its own terms and its family or safety center. This is the only authoritative source for the platform's own line, and most large platforms state 13.
- For children's online privacy in the United States, the Federal Trade Commission enforces COPPA and maintains material on children's online privacy.
- For data protection elsewhere, your national data protection authority, such as the ICO in the United Kingdom, or the European Data Protection Board's material on the GDPR's age of digital consent. If you live in another country, your own authority is the equivalent starting point.
- For state rules in the United States, your state legislature's own site. States including Utah and Arkansas have passed age-verification or parental-consent laws for minors' social media accounts, and the status of several of them is still being decided in court.
- For content ratings, the ratings body named on the product, such as the ESRB in the United States or PEGI in Europe, whose tiers run 3, 7, 12, 16 and 18, and the app store's own age category, which is a separate judgment made by a different organization. Review sites such as Common Sense Media sit outside all of it, useful but not a rule.
- For anything with a consequence attached, and particularly anything you are considering because of a specific incident, a qualified adviser in your own jurisdiction. General information cannot tell you what applies to your situation.
Two habits make this less painful. Note the date you checked, since the next person to raise it in your house will quote something they read. Read the source's own scope before applying it. Most confusion comes from stretching a rule past what it was written to cover.
A dated note also makes the twice-yearly review of your age-by-age guidance changes far easier to run.
The questions where looking it up is the wrong first move
Some situations are not research problems, and treating them as one loses time that matters.
- An adult is in contact with your child, particularly one steering the conversation somewhere private.
- A sexual image of a child is involved, whoever made it and whoever sent it.
- Someone is using threats or pressure to extract money, images or anything else. Stop replying, send nothing further, keep everything.
- Someone has threatened to hurt your child, or appears to know where to find them.
Report any of these and let the people whose job it is decide what it is. In the United States, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children runs the CyberTipline, the reporting route for online child sexual exploitation, and cases of this kind belong with dedicated investigative units, not a school or a platform.
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention describes the task force program for internet crimes against children; elsewhere the equivalent sits with your national police service.
You do not need to have established what category it falls into first, and you should not investigate further yourself. Reporting resources covers the mechanics, including preserving evidence before blocking anyone. Where there is immediate danger, emergency services come before all of it.
What a rule cannot do for you
A rule you have read correctly, in the right country, on the right day, still will not tell you whether your child should have the account. Nor what the household rule should be, or what to do when something goes wrong at eleven at night.
Those are the decisions you are left holding, and they are decided by what you have agreed and how you respond. Family agreements covers writing that down, and teen social media use covers the ground it has to cover.
Common questions
So what is the actual minimum age for the service my child wants?
Its own terms say, and that is the only authoritative answer. Most large platforms state 13; some set the line higher for particular features or regions. It may differ from the age at which the law where you live treats a user's data differently, and neither figure says anything about whether this child is ready.
My child already has an account below the stated age. What now?
Decide whether the account should exist rather than researching whether it may. If it stays, go through the settings together and set the age correctly where you can, since the account age mostly determines which defaults apply.
Does a rating on an app mean it is safe?
It means a ratings body judged its content against published criteria. It says nothing about who will message your child inside it, which is where most of the difficulty is.
Everything I read says something different. Am I missing a source?
Probably not. Four different kinds of rule share the same word, and articles routinely mix them. Work out which kind a claim is about before deciding whether it applies to you.
This page is general information for parents, not legal advice. The ages, laws and bodies above are starting points, and they change; they are not a statement of what applies to your child. For anything with a consequence attached, check the current wording with the body that publishes it, or take advice where you live.
