Some of the tech companies, including Meta, have called for age verification to be applied at device level, so that someone under-age would be automatically blocked from installing social media apps via app stores.
This would place responsibility with Apple and Google, who between them operate most of the world’s smartphones. Apple has already introduced age verification in the UK.
However Ofcom says that would not absolve the social network providers from doing their own checks as well.
The regulator said it didn’t have a firm number for how many adults would need to prove they were not under age, but conceded that it would be a “large number of accounts” that social media companies would need to “deal with.”
It has also acknowledged that “the risk of circumvention cannot be entirely eliminated”, and some children would succeed in bypassing the age checks.
Dawes said making the ban work would be a joint effort.
“At Ofcom, what we will do is make sure that the services that the social media companies put in the checks that they need to,” she told BBC News.
“That’s our job, but the wider question about how everybody engages with this, it is for everybody, really.
“I actually think the real prize here is going to be for today’s eight to 10-year-olds entering secondary school without it being the norm to go on Snap in your class group chat, without it being the norm to have all your sports fixtures organised on Instagram.”
Ofcom’s age verification report will now be considered by the government, with a decision due by the end of the year.
