Editor’s Note — DCC.
On September 18, 2026 the CAC released the State Council Provisions on Ensuring Minors’ Healthy and Safe Use of the Internet (Draft for Public Comment) (国务院关于保障未成年人健康安全使用网络的规定（征求意见稿）). The draft has 25 articles. Comments were due October 17, 2026, by email to weibao@cac.gov.cn or by letter to the CAC’s Bureau of Cyberspace Rule of Law (网络法治局). That window has closed. DCC has translated the draft, the notice, and the CAC’s Explanation in full on the law page.
If adopted, the Provisions would be a State Council administrative regulation, the same rank as the 2024 Regulations on the Protection of Minors in Cyberspace. They would add to the Regulations, not replace them. This brief sets out what is new, whom it binds, and what the CAC’s two expert readings add. The comparison and the reading notes are DCC’s. The expert readings are summarized, not translated.
What the draft adds to the 2024 Regulations
| Topic | Rules already in force | The draft |
|---|---|---|
| Banned services | Minors Protection Law Art 74 bans addiction-inducing services; Art 76 bars live-streamer accounts for under-16s. The AI Anthropomorphic Interaction Measures (Art 14) ban virtual intimate relationships, but only for AI anthropomorphic interaction services | Art 4 adds online social networking with strangers, and applies the virtual-intimacy ban to every network service provider |
| Minors’ mode | Regulations Art 43: game, live-streaming, audio-video, and social providers must set up a minors’ mode | Arts 5, 9: under-16s may be served only through a minors’ mode. The list adds AI services that may affect minors’ cognition and a catch-all. Users identified as minors must be switched in |
| Age identification | Regulations Art 31: real identity information for information-publishing and instant-messaging services; Art 46 for games | Art 6: every network service provider must be able to identify minor users. Listed methods include non-storage one-time facial verification and behavioral feature recognition |
| Content | Regulations Chapter 3 | Art 7: no harmful content in minors’ mode. Self-harm and suicide situations require intervention and a call to the guardian or emergency contact |
| Algorithms | Algorithmic Recommendation Provisions Art 8: no models that induce addiction or over-spending, for users of all ages | Art 8: adds emotional dependence, and requires algorithm mechanism review and science and technology ethics review |
| Devices | Regulations Art 19: pre-install minors-protection software, or tell users how to install it | Art 10: minors’ mode linkage, one-click switching, verification on exit, anti-circumvention, and time, function, and content controls. Art 12: minors’ mode joins MIIT’s network access license testing for smart mobile terminals |
| App stores | No app-store-specific duty | Art 10: age-rate apps, strictly review apps listed in minors’ mode, and restrict downloads by users below an app’s age |
| Filing | None | Art 12: minors’ mode filing with the provincial cyberspace administration. Identified platforms file with the national cyberspace administration and report on their minors’ mode. Annual verification |
The age lines in Article 4 and Article 5 work out as follows. The exception for minors aged 16 or above “whose main source of livelihood is their own labor income” follows Article 18 of the Civil Code, which treats them as having full capacity for civil conduct.
| Service | Under 16 | 16 or 17 | 16 or 17, living on own labor income |
|---|---|---|---|
| Social networking with strangers | Banned | Banned | Allowed |
| Virtual intimate relationships | Banned | Banned | Banned |
| Addiction-inducing services | Banned | Banned | Banned |
| Live-stream broadcasting | Banned | Not banned by the draft | Not banned by the draft |
| Audio-video, live-stream viewing, games, social, cognition-affecting AI | Minors’ mode only | Minors’ mode encouraged (Art 24) | Minors’ mode encouraged (Art 24) |
For 16- and 17-year-old streamers, the Minors Protection Law (Art 76) still requires identity verification and guardian consent.
Who it binds
Network service providers serving minors in China. The core duties apply to every provider, not only large platforms. That covers the bans (Art 4), minors’ mode for under-16s (Art 5), the identification capability (Art 6), content and self-harm intervention (Art 7), algorithm controls (Art 8), and switching plus an appeal channel (Art 9). A provider that offers a minors’ mode must also file its settings and functions with the provincial cyberspace administration (Art 12).
Smart terminal manufacturers. Phones, tablets, and other smart terminal products need the device-level controls in Article 10. Device makers must also follow the Article 4 bans and Article 5 minors’ mode rule themselves, and file their minors’ mode with the provincial office. Article 12 puts minors’ mode for smart mobile terminals into telecommunications equipment network access license testing, which MIIT runs. Minors’ mode would become part of the test a phone must pass before it is licensed for China’s networks.
App distribution platforms. Article 10 makes app stores the gatekeeper for age ratings. They must rate the age range each app suits, strictly review apps that list in minors’ mode, and restrict downloads by users below an app’s age. One factor in the rating is whether the app has filed its minors’ mode. Article 12 does not list app stores among the providers that must file.
Article 20 platforms. Platforms identified under the Minors Platform Identification Measures take a heavier filing route. They file with the national cyberspace administration through the provincial office and submit a report on how their minors’ mode is built and used. Cyberspace administrations verify filings annually. The first identification round opened on October 16, 2026; see CAC opens the first identification round for Article 20 platforms. The draft would add this filing to the six duties those platforms already carry under Article 20 of the Regulations.
Others. A minor’s phone card must be obtained by the minor’s statutory agent, and the telecom operator must register the minor’s real identity (Art 6). In practice that covers every minor except a self-supporting 16- or 17-year-old. Schools, guardians, education departments, and public security organs get duties too (Arts 13–17), with no fines attached.
Penalties
| Violation | Penalty |
|---|---|
| The Art 4 bans, Art 5 minors’ mode, Art 6(1) identification capability, Art 7(3) minors’ mode content and intervention, Art 9(1) switching, Art 11(1) minors’ mode functions (Art 18) | Order to correct, warning, confiscation of illegal gains, and a fine of 1–10 times illegal gains of RMB 1 million or more, or RMB 100,000–1 million otherwise. RMB 10,000–100,000 for responsible individuals. If serious: business suspension, website or app closure, license revocation |
| No working appeal channel, Art 9(2) (Art 19) | Order to correct. A fine of RMB 50,000–500,000 only on refusal or in serious cases |
| Device and app store duties, Art 10, and the filing duty, Art 12(2) (Art 20) | The cyberspace administration orders correction and gives a warning, and may fine RMB 100,000–1 million at once, without waiting for a refusal to correct. If serious: suspension, closure, license revocation |
Article 18 uses the same scale as Article 56 of the Regulations.
What the CAC’s expert readings add
The CAC published two expert readings with the draft. Most of both restates the text. Four points add something:
- Why 16. Liu Ying (刘颖), vice president of the China Academy of Cyberspace Studies, calls 16 the key age line. She says under-16s are more prone to addiction and irrational spending, and less able to spot harmful information and resist fraud. She ties the self-supporting exception to the Civil Code’s full-capacity rule.
- Identification must stay minimal. Liu writes that minor-user identification has to be accurate but must also respect the “minimum necessary” principle of personal information protection. Providers should avoid over-collecting minors’ personal information.
- The list will move. Liu reads Article 24 as a deliberate opening. AI interaction services and other new forms are still changing, so the CAC can add service types to the Article 4 and Article 5 lists without amending the regulation.
- What was already banned. Wang Zhiqin (王志勤), vice president of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), lists the existing bans on addiction-inducing services, under-16 streamer accounts, and virtual intimacy. Stranger social networking is not on her list: it is the draft’s new prohibition. She also cites social media age limits being adopted or advanced in Australia, the UK, Malaysia, and New Zealand. And she cites CNNIC’s 57th report: more than 200 million internet users in China aged 6 to 19 at the end of 2025.
Reading notes for overseas counsel
- “Strangers” is undefined. Article 4 bans online social networking with strangers. Article 5 lists groups, private messages, and comments as social services that under-16s may use in minors’ mode. So ordinary social features survive, and what is banned is a service that connects a minor with people they do not know. The draft does not say whether that means a whole app (a stranger-matching app) or a feature (nearby people, random chat, open direct messages). Map the features that put a minor in contact with unknown users.
- Identification is now an enforceable duty on its own. A provider that cannot identify minor users breaches Article 6(1), and Article 18 penalizes that directly. The listed methods include facial verification and behavioral inference. Facial data is biometric, which makes it sensitive personal information under Article 28 of the PIPL. So is all personal information of children under 14, which needs guardian consent and specific processing rules (Art 31). Document why the chosen method is necessary and how it avoids storing face data.
- “AI services that may affect minors’ cognition” is broad. On its face, Article 5(3) could reach general chatbots, AI tutors, and AI search, not only companion apps. Any of those serving under-16s would need a minors’ mode.
- Device makers face a market-entry gate. Article 2 covers developing and manufacturing smart terminal products in China. Network access licensing applies to phones sold in China wherever they are made, so the test items would reach imported devices too (DCC’s reading). Watch for the test items MIIT and the CAC are to draft together.
- Filing is new for everyone. Today no one files a minors’ mode. The draft would make every provider that offers one file with its provincial office, and app stores would weigh that filing when they rate an app. The draft does not say what the filing contains beyond “settings and functions”, or what the identified platforms’ report must cover.
- Timing. The effective-date line reads “2026年 月 日”: day and month blank, year filled in. That suggests the CAC is aiming for adoption this year. It is still a draft: the State Council has to adopt it, and the text can change.
— 国家互联网信息办公室 (Cyberspace Administration of China), 国家互联网信息办公室关于《国务院关于保障未成年人健康安全使用网络的规定（征求意见稿）》公开征求意见的通知 (Notice on Soliciting Public Comments on the State Council Provisions on Ensuring Minors’ Healthy and Safe Use of the Internet (Draft for Public Comment)), with the draft and its Explanation, September 18, 2026, CAC website. Expert readings, same day: 王志勤 (Wang Zhiqin, CAICT), 完善未成年人网络保护规则 护航信息时代未成年人健康成长; 刘颖 (Liu Ying, Chinese Academy of Cyberspace Studies), 分类施策精准保护 筑牢网络护苗屏障. DCC’s full translation is here.
The comparison with rules in force and the reading notes are DCC’s. The Chinese original is authoritative.
— Not legal advice.