Emma Martins, who previously led data protection in the Channel Islands, told BBC that island governments should resist the urge to simply copy the UK's planned under-16s social media ban. The UK is moving forward with legislation next spring. Jersey and Guernsey politicians are now considering whether to follow suit.
A social media ban for under-16s sounds straightforward in a headline. Enforcement is where it falls apart. Age verification, platform liability, privacy tradeoffs, and the fact that teenagers will find workarounds all get buried when politicians chase the easy win. The Channel Islands need to ask whether a ban actually protects children or just creates the appearance of action.
Island governments will either conduct their own risk assessment or simply import Westminster's politics. If they move forward, the mechanism matters most: app-store gatekeeping, platform age verification, or a broader ID-check system that sweeps up the entire internet.
Martins is right. Kids face real harms online—that's not in dispute. But bans are the favorite policy of governments that want to look tougher than they are competent. Tech companies are happy to push the burden onto blunt age-verification tools that end up scanning everyone. If Jersey and Guernsey actually want fewer children getting hurt online, they need rules that can be enforced without turning the whole internet into a passport desk.
Filed to the Technology desk · Jun 20