Filed under smart-devices
Every brief tagged "smart-devices".
- § 01 · MINORS
Draft State Council Provisions on Minors' Internet Use: A Ban on Stranger Social Networking, Minors' Mode by Default Under 16, and Filing for Devices and Platforms
On September 18, 2026, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) released the draft State Council Provisions on Ensuring Minors' Healthy and Safe Use of the Internet for public comment. Comments closed October 17, 2026. DCC has translated the 25 articles, the notice, and the CAC's Explanation in full. Against the 2024 Regulations on the Protection of Minors in Cyberspace, the draft adds five things. It bans online social networking with strangers for minors (except self-supporting 16- and 17-year-olds), and extends the virtual-intimacy ban from AI companions to all network services. It makes minors' mode the only way to serve under-16s with audio and video, live-streaming, games, social networking, and AI services that may affect minors' cognition. It turns minor-user identification into a stand-alone duty, with methods that include one-time facial verification and behavioral recognition. It reaches smart terminal manufacturers and app distribution platforms. And it creates a minors' mode filing system: providers that offer a minors' mode file with the provincial cyberspace administration, while platforms identified as having a very large number of minor users and a significant impact on minors file with the national cyberspace administration through the provincial office and report on their minors' mode. Fines reach 10 times illegal gains or RMB 1 million. The effective date is blank, but the year reads 2026.