Age verification errors see some under-16s retain access to banned social media platforms

27 minutes agoWed 10 Dec 2025 at 7:18am

Australia’s under-16s social media ban has begun but many children still have access to their feeds. (TikTok)

It’s day one of the social media ban and, unsurprisingly, it hasn’t been a smooth launch.

Many children have already been able to get around the ban in various ways, with age assurance systems misclassifying users and workarounds such as VPNs and makeup tricks being used.

The government admitted the ban wouldn’t be perfect or instantaneous but said the loopholes that allow teens to circumvent the ban would not stay open forever.

Parents have contacted the ABC today, sharing their thoughts on the ban and its ineffectiveness.

Here’s what they told us.

Cassandra from Mollymook, New South Wales said her 14-year-old son still had access to Snapchat after he changed his age and passed the k-ID selfie age confirmation.

"I went into his Snapchat account to change his birthday back and it won’t let me as you can only change your date of birth a limited amount of times," Cassandra said.

"How can this be allowed? How did he get his age confirmed at 23 when he is only 14?"

The ABC has contacted the companies responsible for enforcing the ban.

So far only Snapchat has responded.

"Throughout this debate, we expressed concerns about the technical challenges that the government and companies would face in trying to effectively prevent young people from accessing online platforms," a spokesperson said.

"We continue to believe there are better solutions to age verification that can be implemented at the primary points of entry, such as the operating system (OS), device, or app-store levels.

"In the meantime, parents may report an account if their child is not 16 and we will suspend it."

Alana Scheiffers from Canberra said her 15-year-old daughter and friends were back on Instagram already after passing the age verification (via photo) system.

They were found to be 16 years of age.

"I’m actually okay with this. Whilst I support the ban, and would enforce it if my daughters were younger, at 15 with a 17-year-old big sister, Instagram is a big part of how they socialise and bond," Ms Scheiffers said.

"My daughters and I have a group chat where we send each other funny reels — I’m glad we get to keep that."

Here are some other comments from parents who contacted the ABC as part of an audience call-out looking at the immediate impacts of the social media ban:

"My son opened TikTok this morning and received this message: ‘The social media ban has come into effect. Your age is estimated to be 18 years old.’ He is 11." — David, Vic

"My 13-year-old son has passed the age verification face scan by hiding his teeth and scrunching up his face. It guessed his age as 30+. In real life he passes for a 10-year-old." — Matt, Qld

"My son is almost 16 and has been kicked off Snapchat already on the 9th December but my daughter who is 14 still hasn’t been asked to verify her age on the app. We know multiple children who are 13 who passed the Face ID scan." — Melissa, WA

"My thirteen-year-old daughter still has access to all her social media accounts this morning, and she verified her age via facial scanning. I am hoping that they are still working their way through and she will be booted off soon, if not then it’s a fail for us." — Alison, NSW

"I am under the age of 16 and have not been banned on any platform. Many of my friends in my grade are also under 16 and not 1 of them has been banned yet." — Julius, Qld

Dozens of parents have told the ABC their children still have access to social media, despite being younger than 16. (Reuters: Hollie Adams)

Lisa Given, a professor of information sciences at RMIT University said facial scanning technology had an error margin of one to three years.

"That means the system could guess that a 14-year-old is a 17-year-old and (incorrectly!) believe that they are old enough to have an account," she said.

Accounts purportedly owned by under-16s bragged about avoiding the ban on Anthony Albanese’s TikTok page. (TikTok)

Users purporting to be younger than 16 and haven’t been kicked out of their TikTok accounts have been posting online about "surviving" the ban.

They also flooded Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s account with comments that the ban "didn’t work" and that they’ll "be here forever".

"It didn’t work bud," one comment read.

"So we’re all still here?" another read.

Tyson, 15, who spoke with the BBC, said his peers would find a way to bypass the ban.

"I think the people you’re trying to get off it will be the first ones to find a way around it," he said.

Workarounds already in play

Dr Given said under-16s could use virtual private networks (VPNs) and fake IDs to work around the bans.

"They may try to alter their appearance to try to trick facial scanning age estimation," she said.

"Or they may have a sibling, parent, or another person over 16 do the facial scan for them to get past the age checks."

One mother reported that her daughter was able to circumvent photo verification by wearing make-up. (Reuters: Hollie Adams)

Some teenagers have even worked out that aging themselves for photo verifications can circumvent the ban.

"I have a 12 year old daughter. She and her friends were identified as 17+ simply by putting on some fake lashes and makeup. Even without the [make-up] she was identified as 14+. So either way, these young girls are likely exposed to more inappropriate chats or content than they were before." — Jillian, NSW

My child has gotten past the ban today. Is that the end of it?

The message we keep hearing from everyone — platforms, government and regulators — is that it’s going to take some time to ban every account.

A TikTok user purportedly below the age of 16 brags that their account was not blocked. (TikTok)

Mr Albanese said there were 440,000 Snapchat accounts and about 150,000 Facebook and 350,000 Instagram accounts held by kids between 13 and 15 years old that needed to be banned.

More than 200,000 TikTok accounts have already been deactivated.

So just because your child hasn’t been removed from social media accounts today it doesn’t mean it won’t happen at all.

It could be that your child entered an inaccurate birth date when they signed up. If they said they were older, it might take a while for the platform to track them down.

Communications Minister Anika Wells said children won’t be able to escape the ban forever.

"Just because they might have avoided it today doesn’t mean that they will be able to avoid it in a week’s time or a month’s time," she said.

"Media platforms have to go back and routinely check under-16 accounts."

She said "just because you have had your older brother scan their face today and it has brought you some time", that won’t work going forward.

Teens affected by the ban are already finding workarounds. (Reuters: Hollie Adams)

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant also admitted accounts wouldn’t "magically disappear" due to the imposition of the ban.

"There are going to be technology teething issues and it takes a while to replicate through these major systems," Ms Inman said.