How one UK rule quietly changed kids' settings across the internet

The UK's Age Appropriate Design Code (the 'Children's Code'), in force since September 2021, requires online services likely to be used by kids to put children's best interests first by design. In practice that meant changing the defaults: high-privacy settings on by default, minimal data collection, geolocation off, and limits on profiling. Within months, Facebook, YouTube and TikTok announced concrete changes — defaulting minors' accounts to private, restricting how adults can find and contact them, limiting ads, and adding notification time-outs. Analysts counted dozens of changes across platforms tied to the code, including 43 relating to profiling and advertising.

The code's power is that it shifts protection from the child's vigilance to the platform's defaults — so safer settings are automatic rather than something a parent has to hunt down. It influenced similar 'age-appropriate design' efforts elsewhere.

• Check that your teen's accounts are on the strictest privacy defaults — many now are.
• Understand that defaults do a lot of the work; you don't have to configure everything manually.
• Support age-appropriate-design rules where you live; they protect by design.

• Review privacy and contact settings on each app and tighten anything that drifted open.
• Turn off location sharing and ad personalization for younger teens.
• Use the 5Rights / ICO explainers to understand what protections should already apply.

• ICO — introduction to the Children's Code ico.org.uk ↗
• 5Rights Foundation — setting new standards for children's data 5rightsfoundation.com ↗
• Parent Zone — what the age-appropriate design code changes parentzone.org.uk ↗

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