Government wants stronger protection for children online, but will making the internet safer require every user to surrender more personal information?

Age verification in South Africa is moving closer to reality, as government constitutes new rules for platforms like TikTok and YouTube. A child opens TikTok or YouTube after school. The first video is harmless: comedy, football, beauty or gaming. But within minutes, an algorithm, not a parent, teacher or regulator, is deciding what appears next.

One disturbing video can lead to another. Sexual material, graphic violence, cyberbullying, predatory contact, dangerous challenges or content that damages a child’s self-image can land directly in their feed, not because they searched for it, but because a platform calculated it might keep them watching.

South Africa now wants the companies behind those feeds to carry more responsibility. The solution under consideration, however, could affect far more than children.

Under government’s Draft White Paper on Audio and Audiovisual Media Services and Online Safety, large online platforms and video-sharing services could be required to introduce age-verification measures to prevent minors from accessing material that may harm their physical, mental or moral development.

It sounds simple: keep adult content away from children. Then comes the difficult question: how does a platform prove whether the person holding the phone is 12, 17 or 40?

Age verification could mean checking everyone

The South African proposal does not prescribe a final age-checking system. Internationally, however, age-assurance methods can involve uploading an identity document, estimating a user’s age from their face, analysing account activity, or asking an independent service to confirm that a person is above a particular age.

Any meaningful age gate may therefore require adults to prove their age too. A parent who simply wants to watch a news clip, recipe or religious lecture could face the same checkpoint as a teenager attempting to access restricted material.

That turns a child-safety measure into a national privacy question.

Would South Africans trust a social media platform with a copy of their identity document? Would they allow facial analysis just to watch an ordinary video? Who would process that information, where would it be stored, and what would happen if the system were breached?

South Africans already live with identity theft, data leaks and online fraud. Creating a fresh stream of identity or biometric information would give criminals an extremely valuable target. A system intended to protect children could, if designed carelessly, build another database capable of harming entire families.

That risk isn’t an argument for doing nothing; it’s an argument for collecting as little information as possible.

South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act places strict conditions on the processing of children’s personal information, and international privacy guidance supports the same principle: data minimisation. Platforms may only need a yes-or-no signal confirming that a user meets an age threshold, not their name, identity number or a stored image of their face.

Age confirmation must never become a convenient excuse for more advertising, tracking or profiling. Otherwise, child protection becomes the respectable-looking front door to mass digital surveillance.

The proposal goes beyond age checks

Age verification is only one part of the government’s proposed online-safety framework. The White Paper says major platforms should carry greater responsibility for illegal, offensive and harmful material, particularly where children are concerned.

It proposes:

• Parental-control systems
• Tools for rating or flagging content
• Clearer feedback after users submit complaints
• Media-literacy initiatives
• Restrictions on advertising around children’s content

Government also proposes exploring an online-safety ombud function, which could give South Africans a more accessible complaints route when a platform ignores harmful content, rather than leaving users to argue with an automated reporting system that responds with all the warmth of a parking meter.

That accountability matters because parents cannot carry the entire burden. Families should supervise children’s online activity, set boundaries and discuss what children encounter. But no parent can inspect every swipe while global technology companies run recommendation systems engineered to hold attention for as long as possible.

YouTube already offers tools including supervised accounts, Restricted Mode, content reporting and settings parents can use to manage a teenager’s experience. These safeguards are useful, but a platform choosing to offer protections is not the same as a platform facing an enforceable legal duty when those protections fail.

The real test will be whether companies are required to design safer experiences for minors by default, respond meaningfully to complaints, and face consequences when harmful material continues to reach children.

Nothing changes overnight

South Africans are not currently required, under this proposal, to upload identification, submit to a facial scan or pass an age check verification using TikTok or YouTube.

The White Paper sets out a policy direction, not a finished law. Government’s latest planning documents target ministerial approval of proposed legislation by March 2027, with parliamentary consideration, detailed regulations and implementation still to follow. No final verification method has been confirmed.

That distinction matters: this is not a TikTok ban, and age gates are not operating today.

But families shouldn’t wait for legislation before paying attention. Parents can review privacy settings, activate supervised or restricted modes, and check what the algorithm is recommending, not just which accounts a child follows. Device-free times and spaces help, but open conversation matters even more.

Children must know they can report disturbing content, bullying or predatory contact without automatically losing their phones. If honesty always leads to punishment, silence becomes the safer option, and predators understand that very well.

South Africa is right to demand more from technology companies that profit from children’s attention. The internet cannot remain a place where platforms collect the revenue while families absorb the damage.

But good intentions do not excuse reckless design. The country must protect children without forcing every citizen through a digital identity checkpoint at the entrance to the internet.

The question is no longer whether powerful platforms need stronger rules. They do.

The real test is whether South Africa can make children safer online without making everyone else less private.