PTA says it lacks legal powers to ban social media for children

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has told the Islamabad High Court that it does not have the legal authority to prevent children from using social media.

The response was submitted in a case seeking restrictions on social media use by children under 16 and the introduction of stronger online-safety safeguards. The Islamabad High Court had earlier sought replies from the federal government, PTA, and other authorities on the petition.

In its submission to the court, the PTA said it lacked the statutory powers to bar children under the age of 16 from accessing social media platforms or to impose mandatory age verification across all platforms.

According to the PTA, Section 37 of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) 2016 only empowers the authority to block or remove unlawful online content.

The PTA’s position comes amid ongoing discussions over measures aimed at regulating children’s access to social media and strengthening online protections for minors.

According to the figures submitted by the authority, the blocking rate was 88.68% for TikTok, 87.34% for YouTube and 78.57% for Facebook. PTA said action had also been taken against 79.52% of reported Instagram links and 48.42% of links on X, formerly Twitter.

The authority further said more than 1.066 million websites and links related to obscene content had been blocked.

It also reported blocking more than 203,000 links involving content deemed against Islam and over 46,000 links related to national security concerns.

PTA said technical limitations also complicate enforcement. According to its response, widespread use of HTTPS encryption can make it difficult to block individual pieces of content on some websites, leaving regulators with the option of blocking an entire website in certain cases.