United KingdomEnacted (Sep 2021)

UK Age Appropriate Design Code (UK AADC)

Duty of care requiring platforms to protect children from harmful content, restrict adult-child DMs, and implement age verification.

Key Provisions

What UK AADC requires

01

15 standards of age-appropriate design that online services must conform to

02

Best interests of the child must be a primary consideration in design

03

High privacy settings must be the default for child users

04

Data collection and sharing must be minimized for children

05

Profiling of children is switched off by default

06

ICO enforcement with GDPR-level penalties

Rule Categories Covered

Phosra enforcement categories for UK AADC

Addictive Design Control

algorithmic
addictive_design_control

Disables autoplay, infinite scroll, notification streaks, and other compulsive-use design patterns.

DM Restriction

access control
dm_restriction

Restricts direct messaging to approved contacts or friends only, blocking messages from strangers.

Platforms Affected

Platforms covered by UK AADC

InstagramTikTokDiscordSnapchat
Age: Under 18Penalty: Up to £17.5M or 4% of global turnover

MCP Enforcement

Enforce UK AADC with a single API call

mcp-enforcement
// Enforce UK AADC — DMs + design patterns
tool: trigger_child_enforcement
input: {
  child_id: "ch_emma_01",
  law: "UK_AADC",
  rules: ["addictive_design_control",
          "dm_restriction"]
}

→ Instagram  DMs contacts-only         ✓
→ TikTok     autoplay off              ✓
→ Discord    DMs from friends only     ✓
→ Snapchat   stranger DMs blocked      ✓

Start building UK AADC-compliant features today

Phosra handles the complexity of multi-platform compliance so you can focus on building great products for families.