Snapchat has blocked 415,000 underage accounts in Australia in response to the country's new social media law banning users under 16 from holding accounts. The law, known as the Social Media Minimum Age (SMMA), came into effect on December 10, 2025.
On Monday, February 2, 2026, Snap Inc. (Snapchat’s parent company) announced the update, and the company said it'll continue to disable more under-16 accounts daily. The company also warned some youngsters may be bypassing age verification technology.
In addition to that, Snap Inc. urges the government to direct app stores, like the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store, to check users' ages as an "additional safeguard" for the crackdown. In fact, Meta has long called on the Australian government to require app stores to check users' ages before allowing downloads.
The social media underage accounts' blockage is not only happening on Snapchat; Australia's new law requires major platforms to prevent children under 16 from having social media accounts. If companies fail to take “reasonable steps” to comply, they could face fines of up to A$49.5 million (that's about US$34 million).
Notably, platforms like Meta, TikTok, YouTube, and others are also affected and have collectively blocked millions of accounts under the same rules. The Australian eSafety Commissioner reported last month that about 4.7 million accounts across all platforms have been restricted so far.
However, the law leaves "significant gaps", Snapchat said, arguing that age estimation technology was only accurate to within two to three years. What Snapchat is saying in essence is that some kids under 16 might still slip through and use the app without proper protections, while some people who are actually over 16 could be wrongly blocked from accessing their accounts.
Snapchat uses a mix of methods to determine age, including self-reported age from users and age-estimation technology (e.g., facial detection and behaviour patterns). The company acknowledges its support for Australia’s goal of keeping people safe online but disagrees with a complete ban on under-16s using its platform.
The company argues that age checks would work better if they were handled centrally at the app store level, making the system more consistent and harder to bypass. Snapchat also maintains that, as a messaging app that's mainly used to communicate with close friends and family, blocking teens entirely from using the app could do more harm than good and would not necessarily make them safer or better off.
The company said teens may migrate to less regulated messaging platforms that's not covered by the law, which could undermine the policy’s effectiveness. Compared with Australia’s complete ban, the approach in the United Kindom (UK) and the European Union (EU) is different.
UK regulators focus on safety-by-design under the Online Safety Act that mandates social media and online platforms to protect minors rather than blocking them altogether. The EU, on the other hand, uses the Digital Services Act, which only emphasises age-appropriate design, risk assessments, and parental controls, to regulate minors' activities online instead of strict age-based bans.
