Court Presses Regulators on Children’s Social Media Use in Pakistan

Pakistan’s courts are being pulled into a debate familiar to parents and regulators worldwide: how to police children’s social media use without an existing legal framework to enforce it. The Islamabad High Court has ordered several ministries and regulatory bodies to respond within 15 days to a petition demanding exactly that kind of framework.

The plea, filed by petitioner Waqas Nasir through advocates Muhammad Jalal Haider and Yahya Farid Khawaja, calls for legislation covering children’s social media use, along with an effective age-verification mechanism for social media accounts held by anyone under 16. IHC Chief Justice Sardar Muhammad Sarfaraz Dogar took up the case and issued notices to the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Law and Justice, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority and the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority.

The Legal Gap Around Children’s Social Media Use

Child psychologists who have followed the case say the petition reflects a growing body of research linking heavy, unsupervised social media use among young teenagers to rising rates of anxiety and disrupted sleep patterns, adding urgency to calls for a formal regulatory response rather than relying on platform-level self-policing.

Advocate Haider told the court that an effective age-verification mechanism should be introduced for accounts operated by children, arguing that legislation is urgently needed to protect young users from cyberbullying, online harassment and other harms tied to unsupervised social media use. He framed safeguarding children’s interests as a constitutional and legal responsibility of the state, one that current law fails to meet.

When Justice Dogar asked whether Pemra already had authority to act on the issue, Haider explained that the regulator can respond to individual complaints but has no dedicated legislation specifically governing children’s social media use. That gap, he argued, leaves the state reacting case by case rather than preventing harm before it happens.

What the Ministries Now Have to Answer

Telecom industry representatives, meanwhile, have cautioned that any age-verification system will need to balance child safety against privacy concerns, since collecting identity documents from millions of young users creates its own set of data-security risks that regulators would also need to address.

The 15-day deadline puts pressure on a wide range of federal bodies to explain what, if anything, they are doing to address the issue, and whether any legislative proposals are already in development. Given the number of ministries and regulators named in the case, coordinating a unified response alone could prove to be a significant undertaking.

Legal observers note that Pakistan is far from the only country wrestling with this question. Governments around the world have proposed everything from strict age-verification laws to outright social media bans for minors, with mixed results and ongoing debate over enforceability, since most verification systems can be circumvented by a determined teenager with access to a parent’s ID.

Where the Case Goes From Here

For now, the case remains at an early procedural stage, with the real test coming once the ministries file their responses and the court decides whether to order specific legislative action or simply record the government’s position. Child rights advocates say they are watching closely, hopeful that judicial pressure might succeed where standalone advocacy campaigns have so far struggled to gain traction.

Similar petitions have previously stalled in Pakistan’s courts for lack of a clear implementation pathway, and legal experts say the real test for this case will be whether the court eventually orders the government to draft specific legislation, rather than merely acknowledging the problem in a written response.

As Dawn reported, the next hearing will determine whether Pakistan moves toward a formal legal framework or whether the issue continues to be handled through ad hoc regulatory action.

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