TikTok will begin the rollout of new age-verification technology across the EU in the coming weeks, as calls for an Australia-style social media ban for under-16s grow in countries including the UK.

ByteDance-owned TikTok, and other major platforms popular with young people such as YouTube, are coming under increasing pressure to better identify and remove accounts belonging to children.

The system, which has been quietly piloted in the EU over the past year, analyses profile information, posted videos and behavioural signals to predict whether an account may be belong to a user under the age of 13.

TikTok said accounts flagged by the system will then be reviewed by specialist moderators rather than face an automatic ban, and may then be removed. The UK pilot led to the removal of thousands of accounts.

Meta, the parent of Facebook and Instagram, uses the verification company Yoti to verify users’ ages on Facebook.

In December, Australia implemented a social media ban for people under the age of 16.

On Thursday the country’s eSafety commissioner revealed that more than 4.7m accounts had been removed across 10 platforms – including YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Snap and Facebook – since the ban was implemented on 10 December.

The rollout of the new TikTok system comes as European authorities scrutinise how platforms verify users’ ages under data protection rules.

Earlier this week, Keir Starmer told MPs he was open to a social media ban for young people after becoming concerned about the amount of time children and teenagers were spending on their smartphones.

The UK prime minister told Labour MPs he had become alarmed at reports of five-year-olds spending hours in front of screens each day, as well as increasingly worried about the damage social media was doing to under-16s.

Starmer has previously opposed banning social media for children, believing such a move would be difficult to police and could push teenagers towards the dark web.

Earlier this month, Ellen Roome, whose 14-year-old son Jools Sweeney died after an online challenge went wrong, called for more rights for parents to access social media accounts of their children if they die.

The European parliament is pushing for age limits on social media, while Denmark wants to ban social media for those under 15.

TikTok told Reuters that the new technology was built specifically for the EU to comply with the region’s regulatory requirements. The company has worked with Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, its lead EU privacy regulator, while developing the system.

In 2023 a Guardian investigation found that moderators were being told to allow under-13s to stay on the platform if they claimed their parents were overseeing their accounts.