Measured approach to age assurance needed, Aussie safety commish says

Australia’s online safety watchdog has called on lawmakers to introduce age verification as part of a suite of measures to protect children – but warned that too many restrictions could limit kids’ access to social support and result in secretive use of social media.

Online safety should be tackled with a multi-pronged approach, combining prevention, protection and proactive change, says eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant.

“We aren’t necessarily trying to set up a gate or a wall,” she says. “But we’re making sure that we’re deploying the right technologies in the right roadways to stave off and limit access to kids in places they shouldn’t be or engaging in conduct or content that they shouldn’t do – very much like kids can’t go to a bar until they’re 18.”

The eSafety Commissioner’s Office shared its arguments during a parliamentary inquiry into the impacts of social media on Australian society held last week. The inquiry, led by the Joint Select Committee on Social Media and Australian Society, comes amid the government’s review of the Online Safety Act as well as bipartisan calls to restrict children’s social media access.

After opposition leader Peter Dutton said in May that he would force social media companies to ban children under 16 if he wins the next elections, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also doubled down on castigating social platforms but stopped short of mentioning bans.

Commissioner Inman Grant noted during the hearing that social media has benefits for young people and warned against unintended consequences.

The eSafety office also announced it has been conducting age assurance trials with the Department of Infrastructure and is poised to start the Phase 2 industry codes process to protect children from harmful content like pornography. Last Friday, the Commissioner also introduced mandatory standards that require the AI industry to introduce safeguards into open-source software that creates deepfake nudes.

In May, the Department of Communications announced an AU$6.5 million trial for biometric age estimation and other age assurance technologies with the process to select the third-party expert underway. The technology will be used to prevent minors from accessing social media, porn, gaming and other age-restricted online activities.

Meanwhile, national bodies in the U.S. (NIST) and UK (ACCS) have noted the rapid advancement of biometric facial age estimation technology.

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland noted last week that it has not yet determined the age for restrictions on social media and that this would be determined during the trial. The government is also looking at different use cases around access to age-restricted content, such as pornography, video games and social media.

“There’s no perfect solution but it does need to be integrated with a number of other factors, including having the technology,” Rowland told Sky News.

Yoti’s CEO Robin Tombs said on his LinkedIn account last week that doubts over facial age estimation are very likely to be resolved within the next 12 months.

The company is providing the technology to Meta, which is one of the firms that have come under attack during Australia’s child online safety drive. Earlier in June, the social media giant announced it would introduce age verification for the country’s Facebook users if they try to edit their age from under 18 to older using Yoti’s technology, ahead of a global rollout of the feature.

Last year, Australia declined to mandate age assurance, judging that the technology was too immature. Some officials still hold this view.

While age assurance technologies may limit access to adult content, the tools also curtail children’s right to information as well as restrict parental discretion to determine what is best for their children, Lisa M. Given, professor of information sciences at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, writes for The Conversation.

“Many of these approaches raise significant privacy concerns for users, not least because a third party (such as the social media company) would be handling their ID documents and other personal data,” she says.

Biometric age estimation does not involve the handling of ID documents or retention of personal data, but is rejected by The Conversation with reference to research presented in 2015.

US Surgeon General calls for measures against social media

The mental health crisis among young people is an emergency and social media is an important contributor – this was the message that the U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy published last week, calling legislators to act quickly to prevent harm.

“Legislation from Congress should shield young people from online harassment, abuse and exploitation and from exposure to extreme violence and sexual content that too often appears in algorithm-driven feeds,” Murthy writes in The New York Times.

The U.S. leading spokesperson on matters of public health also called for the introduction of a warning label and preventing social platforms from collecting sensitive data from children.

Article Topics

age verification  |  Australia  |  biometrics  |  children  |  eSafety Commissioner  |  face biometrics  |  Online Safety Act (Australia)  |  regulation  |  United States