Any government plan to restrict children’s access to social media faces big technical challenges such as building an age verification system that tech-savvy teens cannot work around, and runs the risk of driving them towards darker corners of the internet, experts say.

Bipartisan political support emerged this week for the introduction of a 16-year-old age limit for children to use social media, although Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton traded verbal blows about who moved first.