United Arab Emirates

National jurisdiction · as of 2026-09-06

The UAE has no adult-content age-verification statute, no social-media-specific minor-access restriction, and no app-store age-verification requirement, but it has a general-purpose age-appropriate design code in the Federal Decree by Law Regarding Child Digital Safety, which took effect on 1 January 2026.

The Decree by Law binds internet service providers and digital platforms, defined broadly to include websites, search engines, apps, messaging services, forums, gaming, social media, live-streaming, podcast, streaming, and e-commerce platforms, whenever a child (anyone under eighteen) uses the service or is exposed to its content.

It requires risk-based platform classification, age-verification mechanisms, default privacy settings, parental control tools, and content-filtering and reporting duties, and separately prohibits collecting, processing, publishing, or sharing the personal data of a child under thirteen absent parental consent and other conditions. Administrative penalty amounts are deferred to a Cabinet resolution not yet located at primary source.

Federal Law No. 3 of 2016 on Child Rights (Wadeema's Law) and the Federal Decree-Law on Combating Rumours and Cybercrime, which criminalises possession of child pornographic material, address child protection more generally but carry no internet age-verification or age-gating duty of their own.

01

Instruments on record

Federal Decree by Law Regarding Child Digital Safety, platform duties

In force

Federal Decree by Law No. 26 of 2025, Arts. 6-13

Effective 2026-01-01 · Applies to both

The Decree by Law applies to internet service providers and digital platforms operating in the UAE or directed at users in the UAE, whether natural or legal persons and whether public or private sector, whenever children use the platform or are exposed to its content or services; covered platform types are named non-exhaustively and include websites, search engines, apps, messaging services and forums, gaming platforms, social media, live-streaming, podcast platforms, streaming and video-on-demand services, and e-commerce platforms.

Article 6 requires the Cabinet to issue a risk-based classification system for digital platforms setting age-restriction controls, enforcement means, and age-verification mechanisms scaled to each platform's classification.

Article 7 prohibits a digital platform from collecting, processing, publishing, or sharing the personal data of a child under thirteen unless explicit, documented, verifiable parental consent is obtained, a rapid consent-withdrawal mechanism is provided, the data-privacy policy is disclosed, access is restricted to authorised personnel, and the data is not used for commercial purposes, targeted advertising to the child, or tracking beyond the originally authorised purpose.

Article 8 requires platforms to adopt effective and reasonable age-verification mechanisms scaled to their risk classification. Article 9 prohibits platforms from letting a child participate in, hold an account for, or access online commercial gaming, including gambling, and requires platforms and internet service providers to take technical and administrative measures, including age verification and parental controls, to prevent that access.

Article 10 requires platforms to apply default high-privacy settings for children's accounts, age-based use controls, blocking and content-filtering tools, age classification of content, regulation of targeted advertising to children, parental control tools including daily-use time limits, and reporting channels for child pornographic material and harmful content, and to report such material to the concerned authorities.

Article 11 requires the Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority to set internet service providers' obligations, including network-level content filtering and requiring a child caregiver's signature on service terms that mandate parental-control-tool integration. Article 13 places duties on the child caregiver, including monitoring, using parental controls, and not creating accounts for a child on a platform unsuited to the child's age group.

Article 16 defers the administrative penalties for a violation to a separate Cabinet regulation, not yet located at primary source. Article 18 gives covered persons one year from the law's entry into force, extendable by Cabinet resolution, to bring themselves into compliance.

Age threshold18
Enforcement bodyThe Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority (TDRA) for internet service providers; the Ministry of Family and the Child Digital Safety Council for overall governance; the Concerned Authorities named in the Decree by Law for compliance verification and content-removal orders against digital platforms.

Source: Full text of law