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Proposed strategies for age verification have been released ahead of new social media rules, which come into effect next spring.
The UK’s social media ban aims to stop anyone under the age of 16 from accessing 10 of the main social media platforms, including Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat. The legislation comes into effect from next March, but implementing it effectively will pose its own challenges – as highlighted by the rollout of a similar ban in Australia last year.
Ofcom has now set out its recommendations for the most effective ways to identify social media users based on their age. After young people in Australia found ways to get around regulations, the UK plans to take a firmer approach. However, balancing stringent rules with user privacy won’t be straightforward.
Age verification for under-18s is complicated because 16- and 17-year-olds don’t have credit cards or full driving licenses. They can also look significantly older or younger than they are.
Ofcom has proposed four additional methods – besides traditional ID – to regulate who is accessing social media sites. These include face age estimation technology (which has faced significant backlash) and banking-based checks, which involve using the financial information a financial institution has on record regarding a user’s age.
But these policies are only ever going to be as effective as big tech itself will allow. Without co-operation from the apps themselves, the government has little control over how the new rules are implemented.
Ofcom CEO Dame Melanie Andrews is still hopeful that much can be learned from the UK’s tougher age checks for porn sites, which were rolled out last year.
‘What we’ve learned from introducing age checks across the porn industry is that actually what a lot of countries did before us was say you need to do it this way and they were very prescriptive and it didn’t work,’ Andrews told the BBC.
‘So what we’ve said all along is there are things that can work: they must preserve privacy, they must protect people’s data, but it’s on you to put in place what you think works for you.’
The response from tech companies points to a vague and consequently ineffective regulatory rollout. Meta, for example, has called for age verification to be applied at device level, so that someone under-age would be automatically blocked from installing social media apps on their device.
This places the responsibility with Apple and Google, rather than social media platforms – as the government has suggested. Ofcom has said this shouldn’t absolve social network providers from doing their own checks as well, but who does the buck stop with?
Ofcom’s assessment suggests the responsibility will remain with the platforms themselves. App stores could also play a role, but preventing a child from downloading an app is not the same as ensuring an existing account belongs to someone over 16.
The regulatory body has also warned that no age-checking method is entirely resistant to circumvention, meaning parents will always need to step in when children try to get around the restrictions.
