PTA Refuses to Ban Social For Under 16 Due to Lack of Authority

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's telecom regulator has told the Islamabad High Court it cannot keep children under 16 off social media. The lawmakers who could give it that power tried once, then dropped the idea within weeks.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority set out its position in a report filed in Writ Petition No. 4163 of 2026. Section 37 of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016, lets PTA block or remove unlawful content on specified grounds, the regulator said. Nothing in that section allows it to fix a minimum age for users or force platforms to check how old they are.

PTA went further. It told the court that no specific Pakistani law currently bars under-16s from social media. It described its own blocking powers as limited and transitional, and noted that major platforms have not registered locally. It also asked the court to dismiss the petition to the extent it seeks relief beyond PTA's jurisdiction.

The message to the bench is blunt: any Pakistan social media ban targeting children would need Parliament to first provide the legal authority and define how regulators should enforce it.

Parliament has already flinched once. In July 2025, senators tabled the Social Media (Age Restriction for Users) Bill 2025. It would have barred under-16s, required platforms to verify ages and empowered PTA to delete underage accounts. The draft also proposed up to six months in jail for anyone who opened an account for a minor. The bill lasted only weeks before its quiet withdrawal, after stakeholders argued its age limit and penalties went too far.

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Senators returned to the issue on January 16 this year through a calling-attention notice, this time pushing curbs for under-18s. The government responded by proposing a committee.

Then there is the regulator Parliament did create. The 2025 PECA amendments set up the Social Media Protection and Regulatory Authority, with functions covering online safety, platform enlistment and blocking of unlawful content. The government named former Islamabad advocate general Ayaz Shaukat its chairman in March. As of July, officials said the authority still had no budget, no secretariat and no staff, and could not yet exercise its powers.

That leaves children's online safety stuck between three institutions. PTA says it lacks the law. The Senate shelved the law. The authority built for the job had yet to open its doors.

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Petitioner Waqas Nasir wants the court to close that gap. Through advocates Muhammad Jalal Haider and Yahya Farid Khawaja, he has sought an age-verification mechanism for under-16 accounts, a dedicated child-protection framework and directions to the federal government to legislate. IHC Chief Justice Sardar Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar issued notices to ministries, PTA and PEMRA on August 31.

PTA's report spelled out what any real system would demand. It would need rules on verification methods, on who carries out age checks, on how identity data gets handled and protected, and on platform compliance, audits and penalties. None of it, the regulator said, can come through an administrative order.

Pressure is also building from the provinces. Punjab MPA Sarah Ahmad, who chairs the province's Child Protection and Welfare Bureau, has urged federal legislation that includes a PTA-enforced age-verification system. That is the very role PTA now says it cannot take on without a statute.

Other countries have moved faster. Australia's under-16 ban took effect last December. Malaysia set January 1 as the start date for its under-16 rule under its Online Safety Act, and Indonesia imposed its own under-16 ban in March. PTA reminded the court that each of those countries acted through its own legislation.

That point cuts both ways. Pakistan's regulator says it needs a law. Pakistan's lawmakers have not passed one. Until somebody does, no Pakistani statute stands between a 12-year-old and a social media account.