The Philippine House of Representatives on Monday approved on third and final reading a bill that would ban children below 13 from social media and certain online gaming platforms while imposing safeguards for older minors.

House Bill No. 11566, or the proposed Safe and Friendly Environment for Kids in Digital Spaces (SAFE Kids) Act, received 287 votes in favor, three against and no abstentions.

The measure will require covered digital platforms to adopt safety features designed to protect children and to make protective settings the default for younger users. Children below 13 will be barred from creating or maintaining accounts on social media and on online gaming services with social or interactive features.

Users aged 13 to 17 will need parental consent and will face restrictions on targeted advertising, recommendation algorithms, endless scrolling and behavioral profiling — obligations that would require covered platforms serving users in the Philippines to adjust how these features operate for accounts in that age group if the bill becomes law.

The bill also seeks to establish an Office for Safe and Friendly Environment for Kids in Digital Spaces under the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), the government agency responsible for the country's information and communications technology policy. The office will oversee compliance with the proposed law and develop systems to verify users' ages, the function on which enforcement of the below-13 ban would rest.

Under the Philippines' legislative process, the bill now moves to the Senate, which must pass a counterpart measure before it can be signed into law. Passage of that counterpart bill is the remaining legislative step that would determine whether the new requirements take effect.

— Pexcel John Bacon, BusinessWorld Online

Source: BusinessWorld Online