The Philippine House of Representatives has approved a bill that would bar children under 13 from creating or maintaining social media accounts, advancing legislation that still must be reconciled with a stricter Senate measure.
House Bill No. 11566, the proposed Children’s Digital Safety, Protection, and Well-Being Act, passed on third and final reading. It would place users aged 13 to 17 under additional safeguards, including parental consent requirements and age-appropriate restrictions.
The House measure covers safety standards and regulatory duties for social media and online gaming platforms. It seeks stronger protections against harmful content, online exploitation, cyberbullying and grooming, while placing responsibility on service providers to protect younger users.
The Senate’s version would prohibit under-18s from accessing or creating accounts on high-risk platforms and require age-assurance measures. The chambers’ differing thresholds must be reconciled before a final text can be submitted to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. for approval.
Marcos said he had been studying the Senate measure and warned that a blanket social media ban could cause children to conceal their online activity, leaving them vulnerable to grooming and abuse. The legislation has progressed amid renewed debate over children’s online exposure following school shootings.
The Senate’s SMART KIDS proposal excludes services such as email, private messaging, educational platforms, news services and professional collaboration tools. Its age-assurance provisions are intended to enforce the proposed restriction on high-risk services, rather than establish a general prohibition on every form of digital communication.
Age checks are also being developed through individual platform agreements. Roblox agreed to integrate the Philippine Identification System into its age and identity verification after discussions with government officials. That commitment concerns a platform-specific implementation and is separate from the legislation moving through Congress.
The Philippine debate follows restrictions in neighboring markets. Malaysia has begun requiring social platforms to verify ages against government-issued records as it bars under-16s from new accounts, while Indonesia requires designated high-risk services to deactivate accounts belonging to children under 16.
In the Philippines, the House’s final-reading vote completes its latest legislative stage. The next step is agreement between the two chambers on the age threshold and protections that would appear in the measure sent to the president.
Sources: Philippine Canadian Inquirer, Reuters
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
