Contents
Read content on one page
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Page 1Post on Instagram? ID, please!
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Page 2Age restriction – but how is this controlled?
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Page 3How extensive is the damage?
Australia wants to test various age verification systems by 2025which could be used to check how old the users really are. A digital entry control. Anyone who can identify themselves and prove that they are really 16 years old comes in; Anyone who is too young has to stay outside. The Australian government has announced that it will provide several million dollars for the test run. Platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, Snapchat and X are affected. Messenger services such as WhatsApp are to be excluded from the new regulation.
Queries like this already exist various technical systems. The simplest and probably least effective variant are buttons with which you click to confirm that you are old enough. Others require you to hold your ID card up to the camera or identify yourself electronically. There are also companies that promise to detect a person’s age from their face using artificial intelligence.
Nobody in Australia will probably have to show an ID to get to Facebook. The government has already ruled that out. AI facial recognition, on the other hand, could be used reported the British Guardian. The data collected is considered extremely sensitive. Data protection advocates are accordingly critical of the use of such systems; they fear an interference with the fundamental rights of children and young people.
It would be more data-efficient to check via a so-called neutral third-party authority. That plans According to reports in this country the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs. Here, a third-party provider, for example a bank, would confirm the minimum age with the respective platform. The social media platform would only receive information about whether the respective user is of legal age or not and no other personal data.
However, such controls could prove to be ineffective because minors could technically bypass age barriers relatively easily using VPN tunnels. This could, for example, be used to pretend that you are not in Australia, but in a country where less strict controls apply. The Australian Prime Minister also refers to this possibility: “We know that some children will find ways around it, but we are sending a message to the social media companies to change their behavior,” he said.
Instagram tries out Yoti
One of the world’s largest social media platforms already uses an age verification system: Instagram. The social network uses Yoti for the age verification of his so-called teen accountswhich launched in the UK, US, Canada and Australia in September this year and will be available worldwide from 2025. The teen accounts are automatically set to private, meaning people who don’t follow the teens won’t be able to see their content. Additionally, notifications will be muted at night. The introduction of these accounts followed years of complaints from parents about that Meta is not doing enough for the privacy of minors.
The software development company Yoti from Great Britain advertises that the age is based on a Live selfie recording can be assessed relatively accurately within a few seconds using artificial intelligence. No additional identification document is required and the selfie recording is then deleted from the servers.
However, the age cannot be determined exactly using such methods; even Yoti states that the accuracy can vary by two years. Nevertheless, two people use the system of the world’s largest age verification porn sites: xHamster and Pornhubbut only to control the age of their actors, not that of the consumers.
On Instagram, the system is used when a teen account user wants to increase her age online, i.e. to make herself look older. But only then. If you state that you are 16 years old when registering, this will not be checked. “It’s like I want to protect my house from thieves but don’t lock the door,” criticizes youth media advocate Eumann.
