AI Governance Compare

Regulation on Ensuring Minors' Safe and Healthy Use of the Internet (consultation draft)

CN·draft·Grade A·checked 2026-10-12·source ↗

authority
Cyberspace Administration of China (drafted for issue by the State Council)
published
—
effective
—
status
draft

《国务院关于保障未成年人健康安全使用网络的规定（征求意见稿）》 — put out for public comment by the Cyberspace Administration of China on 18 September 2026; comments close 17 October 2026. Twenty-five articles. Not adopted: this is a consultation draft and is cited here as a proposal only. It is drafted for issue by the State Council as an administrative regulation, which would make it the first State Council-level instrument in this repository's China set. published and effective are empty by design: there is no instrument yet, and the draft's own Article 25 leaves the entry-into-force date blank (自2026年月日起施行). The English rendering here is ours; no official English text was found. ⚠

In one line

China is proposing to write minors' online protection into a State Council regulation with its own penalty ladder: services must not hand a minor stranger social networking, virtual relatives or virtual partners, addiction-inducing services or livestream hosting; an under-16 may reach social networking, games, video and AI services that may affect their cognition only inside a minor mode; and platforms must file that mode with the regulator and report on it every year.

What this document is — and what it is not

It is a consultation draft, not law. It carries no order number, no promulgating authority's seal and no entry-into-force date, and the CAC's notice asks the public for comments on it. Anything below may change or be dropped before adoption, and no obligation here is in force. Read it as evidence of the direction of Chinese regulation, and as the instrument that closes the reference the Anthropomorphic Interaction Services Measures already made to it. ⚠

Two structural points distinguish it from the other China cards. First, it is drafted as an administrative regulation (行政法规) to be issued by the State Council, not as a departmental measure — the instruments carded so far are CAC orders or joint departmental measures. Second, it is drafted to carry its own penalties rather than deferring entirely to other laws, in three bands keyed to which article was breached (Articles 18–20).

The drafting note published with it frames the exercise as 小快灵 — "small, quick, nimble" — legislation with Chinese characteristics for minors' online protection, and states that the draft runs to twenty-five articles.

Key provisions

Art. What it requires
1 Purpose and legal basis: the Protection of Minors Law, the Cybersecurity Law and the Personal Information Protection Law.
2 Scope: providing online services to minors inside China; also developing or manufacturing smart terminal products, and running an app distribution platform for smart-terminal users.
3 The best-interests-of-the-minor principle: assess the potential effect on minors, set the audience and the service mode accordingly, and provide minor mode per national rules and standards. The state encourages a domestic minors-only smart terminal industry.
4 Five prohibitions. No minor may be given: (i) stranger social networking — except to a minor aged 16 or over who lives mainly on their own labour income; (ii) virtual relatives, virtual partners or similar virtual-intimacy services; (iii) services that induce addiction or otherwise endanger a minor's wellbeing; (iv) livestream hosting to an under-16; (v) anything else barred by law or national rules.
5 Four service types an under-16 may be given only through minor mode: audio/video, livestreaming other than hosting, and online games; social networking — microblogs, forums, groups, friend circles, direct messages, comment threads; AI services that may affect a minor's cognition; and any other service with a material effect on minors.
6 Minor-identification duty, using legal identity documents, the state network-identity service, distributed digital identity, non-storage one-off face verification and behavioural recognition. SIM cards for minors lacking full civil capacity are issued through their legal guardian.
7 Content management; in minor mode no harmful content may be shown; where a minor is in an extreme situation such as self-harm or suicide, the provider must intervene and contact the guardian or emergency contact.
8 Compliance systems — algorithm review, science-and-technology ethics review, content management, network and data security — and staff matched to the service. No algorithmic model may be set up to induce a minor user's emotional dependency, addiction or excessive spending.
9 Once a user is verified or identified as a minor, the Article 4 services must be withheld and the Article 5 services switched into minor mode; an appeal channel must be provided, and measures lifted after verification.
10 Smart terminals: minor-mode linkage, one-tap switching, exit verification, anti-bypass, and time-of-day, duration, function and content management. App stores: listing review, age-appropriateness assessment, and limiting download or installation of apps outside their applicable age range. Both must follow Articles 4 and 5 as well.
11 Minor mode must meet national rules and standards and must detect harmful content, protect minors' personal information, prevent addiction and help guardians. The CAC with other departments builds the supporting technical standards.
12 Filing registry: terminal makers and service providers file their minor-mode configuration with the provincial CAC; providers with huge numbers of minor users or significant influence file with the national CAC through the province and report on the build and use of minor mode; the CAC conducts an annual verification. Also telecom type-approval testing of terminal minor mode, and the press-and-publication authority's games-addiction work.
13–17 Education departments and schools (13, 16), public security (14), mass organisations (15), guardians (17).
18 Penalties on the core duties (Articles 4, 5, 6(1), 7(3), 9(1), 11(1)): order to correct, warning, confiscation of illegal gains; where gains exceed RMB 1,000,000, a fine of 1 to 10 times the gains; otherwise RMB 100,000–1,000,000; responsible officers RMB 10,000–100,000. Refusal to correct or serious circumstances: suspension of the business, closure of the site or app, revocation of the licence or business licence.
19 Breach of the minor-mode switching duty (Article 9(2)): RMB 50,000–500,000.
20 Breach of the smart-terminal and app-store duties (Articles 10, 12(2)): RMB 100,000–1,000,000.
21 Otherwise the Protection of Minors Law, Cybersecurity Law, PIPL, the Regulations on the Protection of Minors in Cyberspace and the Telecom Regulations apply; civil, public-security and criminal liability are unaffected.
24 The CAC may adjust the Article 4 and Article 5 service lists over time; offering minor mode to a minor aged 16 or over is encouraged.
25 Entry into force is left blank — the draft reads 自2026年月日起施行, a 2026 date not yet filled in.

Relationship to other instruments

Why this matters for the comparison

Both systems now treat minors as a category that changes what a service may do, but they pull in different directions. The EU's DSA pulls the platform's design (no profiling-based ads to minors; a high level of privacy, safety and security) and the AI Act pulls prohibited exploitation of age-based vulnerability; both leave the service available. China's draft instead removes named service types from minors altogether — stranger social networking, virtual intimacy, livestream hosting under 16 — and gates a second list (social networking, games, video, cognitive-affecting AI) behind a mode that the provider must file with the regulator and report on annually. It is the mode-plus-registry pattern, not the risk-assessment pattern, applied to minors' access as such.

Official sources

Source quotes

Every sentence below is copied from the official text and pinned to the snapshot in snapshots/ that this card was written against. node scripts/check-quotes.mjs re-checks them offline, so a quote that stops matching the source fails a check instead of quietly becoming the record. The prose above is a rendering; these are the anchors.

Unverified / TODO