CONGRESS can draw an age limit in a statute. Making that boundary work on a teenager’s cellphone is another matter entirely.
That is the challenge facing the proposed Safe Media Access and Responsible Technology for Kids in Digital Spaces Act, or Smart Kids Act. The Senate has approved the measure on third reading with only one dissenting vote from Sen. Risa Hontiveros. She raised concerns about young content creators, online sellers and families who rely on digital communication to stay connected. I believe these concerns deserve attention as lawmakers work toward a common version.
The aim to protect children from online danger is sound. Rampant issues such as cyberbullying, grooming, sexual exploitation and harmful content demand urgent action. But a proposed law’s intentions, no matter how good they are, must first survive two difficult tests: Can it be enforced today? Will it remain useful and effective tomorrow?
Having served in the Senate, I know that passing a bill is an achievement. It is also the beginning of another struggle. The distance between what a law demands and what the government can deliver is considerable. We assign responsibilities to agencies, prescribe penalties and require implementing rules. Yet none of these automatically provides trained personnel, technical expertise, adequate budget, or even the ability to secure cooperation from entities operating across borders.
A child protection law in the digital age needs all these and more.
Who will determine whether an age-verification system works? Who will investigate a parent’s complaint when a child’s access is wrongly blocked? Who can assess whether a recommendation system repeatedly directs young users toward dangerous material? And how quickly can authorities respond when exploitation is already taking place?
These are not minor administrative details. They are questions of enforcement, accountability, and ultimately, the safety of children.
The Senate-approved measure would restrict access of those under 18 to services that are classified as high-risk, though there are certain exemptions such as private messaging, emails and educational and news services, among others. Meanwhile, the House version uses a lower threshold, barring children below 13 from having their own social media accounts, while contemplating imposing restrictions for older teenagers. The difference between the two versions involves judgments about growing independence and the safeguards that children need at different ages.
For an overseas Filipino worker, a private video call may be an essential part of parenting. The messaging exemption is therefore significant. But exemptions must work in practice, particularly when messaging and public social media functions often share a single account or application. A parent working abroad should not need a lawyer or an IRR to find out whether a nightly conversation with a child is permitted.
Young people earning through online selling or creative work present another challenge. Lawmakers should examine whether supervised access can preserve lawful opportunities while protecting earnings, limiting exposure to strangers, and preventing exploitation by adults.
But an exception for livelihood must not become a loophole through which adults can evade their responsibility to protect children.
Australia offers a useful lesson. Its under-16 social media account restrictions took effect in December 2025. An early evaluation by the country's eSafety regulator found that account ownership among children aged 10 to 15 fell from 52.4 to 42.1 percent after three months. And while that indeed showed movement, it also showed that substantial access still remained. The regulator also cautioned that the early findings could not establish whether the policy had achieved its longer-term goals.
The lesson is sobering. Fewer accounts do not necessarily mean safer children. Nor do they, by themselves, establish improvements in sleep, well-being, or mental health. Compliance is one measure of implementation, not proof of the law’s ultimate success.
We must also watch where displaced or “banned” users go. A restriction could encourage some children to simply conceal their age or use other services with weaker safeguards. This is a possibility to investigate, not an outcome we should assume. A child who circumvents an age restriction remains a child who needs protection.
Then comes the issue of technological change.
A statute written around current applications may quickly become outdated as new services emerge and existing ones combine social networking, commerce, gaming, and artificial intelligence into a singular experience. And Congress simply cannot amend a law every time a single company introduces a new feature.
The better approach is to establish enduring duties in the statute while allowing technical standards to evolve. Those duties should include protecting children from exploitation, safeguarding personal information, responding to complaints, and accounting for foreseeable risks created by a platform’s design.
The European Commission guidance offers useful examples: private accounts by default, safer recommendations, controls on unwanted contact, and disabling features that encourage excessive use. Such measures focus on how platforms operate rather than on the names or features of particular applications. They are therefore more likely to remain relevant as technology changes.
Adaptability must nevertheless have boundaries. Regulators should publish evidence, consult affected communities, explain decisions, and provide avenues for appeal. Children, parents, educators, and working youth must have a voice in the process. An authority to update standards must not become unlimited discretion over access to information.
Age verification itself requires scrutiny. Protecting children should not create unnecessary collections of identification documents or sensitive personal data. Systems need independent testing, minimal data retention, and remedies for mistakes.
Implementation should be funded, phased and evaluated. Success must be measured through actual harms and unintended consequences, including effects on family communication and legitimate work.
Digital literacy must accompany enforcement. Children need to recognize signs of manipulation, scams and grooming. Parents and teachers also need practical support to help them develop these skills. These skills will remain useful long after today's popular application has become obsolete.
At the end of the day, we should not confuse passing a law with automatically providing protection. The real achievement is having a law that the government can enforce, platforms must respect and families can understand — a law that is firm enough to protect children, flexible enough to keep pace with technology, and accountable enough to safeguard the rights it does not intend to restrict.
A vote to pass it is a milestone. Protection is the hard work that follows.
