ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on Thursday informed the Islamabad High Court (IHC) that it lacked the statutory authority to impose mandatory age verification or restrict social media access for minors under the age of 16.

It stated this in a detailed report submitted to the IHC in response to a writ petition seeking to restrict social media use for minors.

This writ petition was submitted by Waqas Nasir in August through his advocates in the IHC, seeking directions to the federal government to introduce legislation and a comprehensive regulatory framework to regulate social media use by children under the age of 16.

The petitioner contended that children were increasingly exposed to the harmful effects of social media, including cyberbullying, online harassment, and inappropriate or harmful content, requiring the state to introduce a comprehensive legal and regulatory mechanism for their protection.

On August 31, the IHC sought responses on the petition from relevant ministries and authorities, including the PTA.

In its report on Thursday, the PTA cited significant technical limitations and a shifting legal landscape under the new Prevention of Electronic Crimes (Amendment) Act 2025 (Peca).

The report stated that while it PTA acknowledged the importance of protecting children from online harms, the relief sought by the petitioner — specifically a universal minimum age for social media accounts — travelled beyond its existing legal mandate.

It emphasised that it was a statutory regulator that was bound to exercise only the powers conferred upon it by law, and further argued that it could not create a new statutory age-verification regime through administrative action alone.

In its report, the PTA highlighted a major transition in the regulatry landscape.

“With the promulgation of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes (Amendment) Act, 2025, a new body — the Social Media Protection and Regulatory Authority (SMPRA) — is set to replace the PTA regarding the regulation of social media platforms,” it maintained.

The PTA noted that until the SMPRA was officially notified, it continued to perform its functions under the original Peca 2016 framework on a “best-efforts basis”, but its mandate regarding content removal and blocking had become “transitory in nature”.

The report provided a detailed technical analysis of why regulating content on social media platforms was fraught with difficulty.

The PTA explained that major platforms like Facebook, Google, and X (formerly Twitter) operated as “Over the Top” (OTT) services. These companies were neither licensed by the PTA nor registered in Pakistan, it said, meaning they were not bound by local codes of conduct.

The PTA identified two primary options for regulators: approaching the operators directly or taking technical action. However, the authority noted that requests to social media operators are often evaluated under their own “Community Guidelines”, which may not align with Pakistani laws.

On the technical side, the PTA pointed out that most platforms use HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) encryption.

“This security protocol prevents third-party monitoring from identifying specific resources or individual pieces of content being accessed within an encrypted connection.

“Consequently, blocking a specific URL on an HTTPS platform is nearly impossible without blocking the entire website, which would disrupt access to legitimate content as well.”

The report also touched upon the emerging challenges posed by Artificial Intelligence (AI).

While noting that AI makes digital interactions easier, the PTA stated that it also posed “certain challenges”, contributing to the complexity of regulating content in a rapidly evolving technological environment.

Despite these limitations, the PTA defended its track record, presenting a “URL Blocking Summary” showing that it had processed over 17 million URLs, blocking approximately 88.20 per cent of them.

The report also detailed extensive awareness campaigns, including collaborations with the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), TikTok, Meta, and GSM Association, aimed at digital literacy and child online protection.

In its report, the PTA prayed to the court to dismiss the petition to the extent that it sought reliefs beyond the authority’s statutory mandate.

It maintained that any allegation of failure must be assessed against specific statutory duties, which, in the current legal context, did not include the power to prescribe a minimum age of 16 for social media users.