When it comes to age verification, it is expected that the tech giants will do the checking.
“The methods available to platforms are well established. Identity document scanning with a face match, email-based age checks and facial age estimation are proven to work at scale,” says Andy Lulham, Chief Operating Officer at Verifymy.
That is a concern for those who worry about the reach of Big Tech into our lives – and that affects all of us, not just the young people who need to prove their age. Some see this as a major attempt by the authorities to control who can access what on the internet: this troubles privacy and rights campaigners as much as it relieves parents who are worried sick about what their children are being exposed to.
For those in favour, this is a price worth paying to protect children.
For Elon Musk, the controversial owner of X, it has a more sinister undertone: “The real goal is to enable the UK government to track everyone,” he posted. It’s not the first time the US trillionaire has waded into UK politics and he isn’t universally welcomed when he does. Needless to say the government denies this.
Musk is not alone in his concerns: an international campaign called Stop Killing the Internet also launched this week. The group, which includes the Index on Censorship and Big Brother Watch, is concerned that various forms of surveillance, as it considers this to be, limit rights to freedom of expression for children and adults.
Silke Carlo, Director of Big brother watch said: “We want all children to be safe online, but these policies create new safety and privacy risks for young people and entire adult populations alike. Far from reigning in Big Tech in, age-gating policies gift corporations masses more of our personal information whilst letting them off the hook for their design choices”.
For Carlo, those risks include the potential for sensitive children’s data, such as proof of age and face scans, to be stolen and misused.
And then of course there’s the potential for future mission creep.
