Strategic Intelligence: Deep Dive into Age Assurance Tools

Age assurance is an umbrella term encompassing various mechanisms used to verify a person’s age or age range. Typically, it involves confirming age or age range to a sufficient standard to comply with laws and regulations that specify a particular minimum age, which must be checked exactly.

Social media, video streaming, and gaming platforms already use various age-assurance methods, although few of them use age assurance at the registration process. Facebook, Reddit, TikTok, and Roblox use age verification before granting users access to age-restricted content.

Key Highlights

• Age assurance methods are far from foolproof. Aside from falsely self-declaring their age, minors may employ other strategies to circumvent systems, such as using virtual private networks (VPNs). However, concerns about VPNs’ ability to bypass legislation are often exaggerated, and VPN use is not necessarily proof that age estimation tools are ineffective.
• There is still work to be done to improve age assurance technology. Errors in age estimation technology are inevitable, and alternative methods are required to correct them. Age assurance must be combined with content moderation and algorithm checks to mitigate online harm, and a safety-by-design approach must be prioritized.

Scope

• This report looks at all aspects of age assurance, with particular reference to its impact on online safety
• It includes geographical analysis of age assurance implementation, including coverage of the UK, US, EU, Australia, China, and India.
• It evaluates the challenges inherent in age assurance tools, and looks at how companies can mitigate their online safety risk.

Reasons to Buy

• Age assurance is a key tool for enforcing online safety legislation. Platforms can only protect children from harmful content if they know their age.
• The UK and the US already enforce some age verification requirements, while other countries are expected to follow suit.
• This report provides timely coverage of an extremely topical issue, including details of the latest regulation and practical guidance around age assurance mechanisms.