Indonesia has given eight of the world’s most widely used mobile platforms a hard deadline to verify the ages of their users. Under Ministerial Regulation Number 9 of 2026, issued by the Ministry of Communication and Digital, accounts belonging to users under 16 must be disabled by March 28, 2026, on YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live, and Roblox. Platforms are required to implement age-verification mechanisms to meet the obligation.
Each platform on that list is primarily accessed via smartphone. TikTok, Instagram, Threads, and Bigo Live are built around mobile-native experiences. YouTube and Roblox draw the majority of their younger user base through mobile apps. The regulation is, in practical terms, a mobile identity requirement: platforms must determine the age of users who authenticate and interact through apps on a device, without introducing friction that defeats the product entirely.
The technical approaches available to those platforms range from document-based verification and facial age estimation to parental consent flows and operator-level age signals from mobile carriers or device accounts. Each carries tradeoffs on accuracy, privacy, and user friction. Regulation 9 does not prescribe a method; it specifies an outcome and a deadline. Platforms that already operate global age assurance infrastructure, including document check pipelines built for GDPR or COPPA compliance, will be able to adapt those systems. Those that do not face a compressed build-or-buy decision with a three-week window to the first enforcement date.
That implementation challenge sits at the center of the current global conversation about age assurance. Indonesia joins a growing set of jurisdictions that have moved from guidance to enforceable obligation. Australia’s under-16 ban took effect December 10, 2025. The United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act creates similar obligations across a broader set of harms. The common thread is that regulators are now treating age assurance as a technical requirement, not a best-practice recommendation, and they are targeting platforms that operate at scale on mobile.
For the mobile identity industry, Indonesia’s regulation adds another large market to the list of places where age assurance infrastructure must either already exist or be built quickly.
Sources: VOI, The Jakarta Post, Kompas
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By the Mobile ID World Editorial Team
