• Snapchat blocks thousands of underage accounts daily in Australia
• Company warns of age-verification gaps, calls for additional measures

Snapchat, the social media and instant messaging platform, announced on Monday that it had blocked around 415,000 accounts believed to belong to users under the age of 16.

The move comes as part of tech companies’ compliance with Australia’s age-based social media ban.

The company warned that some minors might bypass age-verification technology and urged Australian authorities to require app stores to check users’ ages as an extra safeguard, a world-first measure.

The law, which came into effect on December 10, obliges platforms like Snapchat, Meta, TikTok, and YouTube to prevent minors from creating accounts, with fines of up to AUD 49.5 million for failing to take “reasonable steps” to comply.

Australia’s eSafety regulator reported that tech companies had already blocked or disabled around 4.7 million accounts by the end of January, achieving “tangible results,” while Snapchat confirmed it continues to block more accounts daily.

Despite this, Snapchat stressed there are “significant gaps” in the law, noting that age-estimation technology can err by two to three years, potentially allowing some under-16 users to bypass restrictions, while others over 16 may lose access by mistake.

Following Meta’s example, Snapchat called on Australian authorities to create a centralized verification system at the app-store level to ensure better protection and raise barriers against attempts to circumvent the law, emphasizing that a total ban is not the optimal approach.