UAE Child Digital Safety Law: what platforms must do, and by when

The short answer

The UAE's Child Digital Safety Law, Federal Decree-Law No. 26 of 2025, applies to digital platforms that operate in the UAE or are aimed at users there, wherever the company is based, and treats everyone under 18 as a child. It has been in force since 1 January 2026, and platforms have until about January 2027 to comply unless the Cabinet extends the deadline. It asks for privacy by default, age checks, content filtering and blocking, reporting tools and more; the risk classification of platforms and the penalties are still to come.

A "digital platform" in the law is any online service where users interact and that offers digital services or content, from websites and apps to games, shops and streaming. A separate Cabinet resolution, No. 106 of 2026, has barred children under 15 from social media accounts since 30 June 2026, with 12 months for platforms to adjust.

Who does what

• Child Digital Safety Council. Set up by the law and chaired by the Minister of Family; the Cabinet decides its membership (Art. 4). It proposes policies, laws, standards and awareness programmes (Art. 5). Under Resolution 106 it adopts the detailed standards and guides for social media, on the proposal of TDRA or the National Media Authority, both below (Res. 106, Arts. 3(4), 4 and 7(5)).
• Ministry of Family. Its Minister proposes the resolutions that put the law into effect, and chairs the Council.
• The Cabinet. Issues those resolutions: the classification of platforms (Art. 6), the rules on data of children under 13 (Art. 7), the penalties (Art. 16), any extension of the deadline (Art. 18), and others such as Resolution 106 (Art. 19).
• TDRA. The Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority, "the Authority" in the law. It sets the duties of internet service providers (Art. 11). Under Resolution 106 it supervises the technical duties of social media platforms and can audit their age checks (Res. 106, Arts. 4(1)(f) and 7(2)).
• National Media Authority (NMA). Set up by Federal Decree-Law No. 11 of 2025. Under Resolution 106 it supervises the duties that concern content (Res. 106, Art. 7(1)).
• Concerned Authorities. The law's term for the federal and local bodies in charge of cybersecurity, the digital environment and digital media. Platforms report to them, and they check that platforms meet their duties, with the power to close or block a platform (Art. 10(3)).
• Competent Authorities. The federal and local bodies in charge of child affairs.
• Child caregivers. Parents and guardians have duties of their own, such as using parental controls and not opening accounts for children on platforms unsuitable for their age (Art. 13).
• Harmful Content. Material that "may adversely affect the moral, psychological, or social values of Children or society, and contravenes Media Content Standards", the standards of the UAE Media Law, Federal Decree-Law No. 55 of 2023 (Art. 1).

Timeline

Art. 18 gives the year to everyone covered "at the time of its issuance". It does not mention platforms that launch later; if that is you, ask your lawyer.

Is your platform covered?

The law applies to internet service providers and digital platforms "operating within the State or directed at users in the State", public or private, "whenever Children use digital platforms or are exposed to their content or services" (Art. 3). Its list of examples:

• websites and search engines;
• smart apps, messaging apps and forums;
• gaming platforms;
• social media and live-streaming platforms;
• podcast platforms;
• streaming and on-demand video services;
• e-commerce platforms.

What a platform must do depends on its class in a risk-based system the Cabinet has not issued yet (Art. 6). That resolution will set the criteria (type, content, scale of use, impact), the age limits and age-check methods for each class, the detailed duties, and how they are checked.

Ask your lawyer if:

• your service is not aimed at children but children can use it, since the law applies whenever children use a platform or see its content;
• you are based abroad and unsure whether you are "directed at" users in the UAE;
• you are unsure whether your service is a "digital platform" at all, for example a business tool where users rarely interact.

What platforms must do

These are the duties of digital platforms in the law, with our reading of where a moderation API can help. The Art. 10 duties apply "according to their classification" (Art. 10(1)), so their detail will come with the classification resolution; the Art. 7 and Art. 9 rules carry no such qualifier. CSAM below means child sexual abuse material, which the law calls "Child Pornography Materials".

Accounts for under-15s: Cabinet Resolution No. 106 of 2026

Resolution 106 applies to social media platforms available in the UAE or directed at users there, wherever the provider is established (Arts. 1 and 2). It defines a social media platform broadly: public or semi-public accounts, social interaction, publishing content, or ranking and recommending content by algorithm, whether free or paid.

• Under 15: no personal account. Children under 15 may not create, use or operate one, or use full features such as posting, commenting, sharing or joining public groups (Art. 3(1) and 3(2)). A parent's consent is no exception (Art. 3(5)).
• 15, but not yet 16: a restricted account. Platforms classify and restrict the content these users can view or share, "including Harmful Content"; limit public sharing and contact with strangers; offer time limits and parental controls; and restrict or switch off risky features such as unrestricted private messaging, open live streaming and intensive algorithmic recommendation, or add safety measures the Council accepts (Art. 3(3) and 3(4)).
• Age verification. Accurate, using the least data needed, open to audit by TDRA, and keeping no biometric data or ID documents beyond what the check needs. Accepted methods include a digital government identity, a scan of an official ID document, another official document with biometric matching, AI age estimation and licensed providers in the UAE. Self-declared age does not count (Art. 4).
• Other duties. Find and suspend underage accounts, block workarounds, show no ads aimed at children through tracking or profiling, assess risks regularly and report periodically (Art. 5).
• Oversight. The NMA for content duties and TDRA for technical ones, with measures from a warning to blocking and the penalties in the list the law calls for, applied step by step (Art. 7).
• Deadline. Twelve months from 30 June 2026, so 30 June 2027 (Art. 8).

Turkey takes a similar line from 1 November 2026: see Turkey's under-15 social media rules.

Still pending

The official portal's list of legislation related to the law, read on 16 October 2026, shows one resolution made under it: Resolution 106. Still to come:

• the risk-based classification of platforms (Art. 6), which sets each class's age limits, age-check methods and duties;
• the list of administrative penalties, who imposes them and how to challenge them (Art. 16);
• which data of children under 13 may be collected, and how parental consent is obtained and checked (Art. 7(2)), plus the exemption for educational and health platforms (Art. 7(3));
• any extension of the one-year period (Art. 18);
• the Council's standards and guides under Resolution 106, for example on time limits, risky features and accepted age-check methods (Res. 106, Arts. 3(4), 4 and 7(5)); we found none published by 16 October 2026.

Where Detectivision fits

A content moderation API sorts what users post into categories. Under these rules that is part of three duties:

1. Blocking, filtering and age-rating content (Art. 10(1)(c)). Check posts, comments, messages and images, and use the flags to block, filter or rate them.
2. Proactive detection of harmful content (Art. 10(1)(g)). The law expects platforms to use "artificial intelligence systems and machine learning algorithms" for this, according to their class. A moderation API is one such system, for the categories it covers.
3. Restricted accounts of 15-year-olds on social media (Res. 106, Art. 3(4)(a)). Classify and restrict what they can view or share. The resolution limits the use of children's data, but allows "algorithmic processing necessary to ensure Children's digital safety, prevent their exposure to Harmful Content or age-inappropriate content" (Res. 106, Art. 5(4)).

What Detectivision checks today (the public status endpoint, read on 16 October 2026; GET /api/v1/flags shows your account's own list):

If your users in the UAE write in Arabic or English, Detectivision can check their text and their images.

Moderators review flagged items in the dashboard's Logs and take your own actions, such as Remove or Keep. Your system can receive each action by webhook and carry it out; Detectivision never acts on your platform itself. See Flags and Metadata and actions.

Where the checks go, by industry: online communities, dating apps, marketplaces and games. By category: NSFW detection and violence detection for images, self-harm detection for text.

Talk to us about your UAE launch

Start the free trial

What this does not do

• Not every language. Text checks are reliable in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Turkish, Arabic, Russian and Hindi, and a flag may cover only some of them. Text in other languages is checked, but the results are not reliable (Text).
• No age checks. Detectivision does not verify or estimate ages. Parental controls and privacy settings are features you build.
• No CSAM detection. The image flag sexual says an image is sexual; it does not judge anyone's age. There is no hash matching, and Detectivision does not report to the authorities.
• One item at a time. Each check judges one text or one image. It does not follow a conversation or a user's behaviour over time.
• Whole-item flags. Current plans return no word positions, boxes, masked text or blurred copies.
• No video, audio or live streams yet. They are coming soon, while the law already covers video and live-streaming platforms.
• Not legal advice. A moderation API can help with the filtering and classification duties. The rest of the table, and whatever the classification resolution adds, stays with you.

Changelog

• 16 October 2026. First version, from the official English texts of Federal Decree-Law No. 26 of 2025 and Cabinet Resolution No. 106 of 2026 on the UAE Legislation portal, and the u.ae page on children's digital safety.