Ofcom outlines ways social media can verify ages of users

Some of the tech companies, including Meta, have called for age verification to be applied at device level, so that someone under-age would be automatically blocked from installing social media apps via app stores.

This would place responsibility with Apple and Google, who between them operate most of the world's smartphones. Apple has already introduced age verification in the UK.

However Ofcom says that would not absolve the social network providers from doing their own checks as well.

The regulator said it didn't have a firm number for how many adults would need to prove they were not under age, but conceded that it would be a "large number of accounts" that social media companies would need to "deal with."