The Chinese Cyberspace Administration recently presented new rules regarding the use of smartphones by minors, including imposing time limits on them.
China continues to tighten the screws on minors. After having imposed limits on the internet and video games, it is now tackling the use of smartphones in general. As reported by the British magazine The Register, the Chinese Cyberspace Administration (CAC) unveiled new rules on this subject last week.
The internet regulator wants to impose limits on those under 18 with a “minor mode” installed on smartphones. Concretely, with this, those under 16 could only use their phone one hour per day and those between 16 and 18 two hours per day. Minors will also receive a reminder to rest if they use their smartphone continuously for 30 minutes.
Limits on time, content and interactions
In addition to these limits, “minor mode” will also prevent them from using applications between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., unless they have an exemption from their parents.
“When the recommended daily usage time is exceeded, all apps, except certain necessary apps and apps with a personalized parental exemption, are suspended by default,” the CAC said in its regulations.
The “minor mode” must also include a content filter to ensure that only age-appropriate content is offered to young people. This mode will also prevent them from interacting with strangers on social networks while limiting the visibility of the content they publish there.
The regulator specifies that minors will nevertheless still have access to basic communication services (messages, calls, etc.) with this mode for security reasons.
Force Apple and Google to control age
With this regulation, the CAC will force device manufacturers, application developers and application stores to work together to develop this “minor mode”. They will, among other things, have to ensure that it is interoperable on the different screens used by children.
In other words, China will force Apple and Google, which, in addition to designing smartphones, also manage application stores, to control the age of users. She is not the only one who wants to impose this age verification on these two companies. This is also the case for Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, so as not to have to resolve this thorny issue at its level.
In November 2023, Meta said it supported legislation requiring app stores to “obtain parental approval every time their teens under the age of 16 download apps.”
Note that the “minor mode” proposed by China will not be mandatory. Parents will be able to activate it on their children’s smartphones. Aware of the risk that children will try to deactivate it, the CAC specifies that it must be equipped with an anti-circumvention function, which will notably require parental verification to exit it.
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