Yoti facial age estimation helps Yubo build trust with users

Yubo, which bills itself as a “live social discovery platform,” has released a new case study showing how they have achieved “100 percent age verification globally – for all users” using facial age estimation tech from Yoti.

Yubo says it uses group livestreaming, messaging, and an intuitive swipe feature to create social communities. Since its founding in France in 2015 as Yellow, the company has amassed 80 million downloads and is used in more than 140 countries. Its target audience is Gen Z, typically considered to be those born after 1997.

For social media platforms, skewing young increasingly means contending with age-based regulations, as legislators globally try to curb the proven ways in which social media harms youth. The most high-profile case to date is in Australia, where regulators have passed an age assurance law banning users under 16 from using most social media platforms.

In Yubo’s case, there are added stakes. The platform separates users into different “communities” based on age, meaning there’s added incentive to make sure teenage users don’t end up interacting with grizzled men in their 60s – especially when Ofcom says one third of children have lied about their date of birth to be registered as over 18 when accessing social media platforms.

That’s probably why Yubo operates on the principle of safety-by-design. The case study says “the app has a notable track record of rolling out innovative features and policies proactively to mitigate risks and enhance the user experience.”

Age estimation from Yoti helps put users in communities with peers

Yoti’s facial age estimation plays a big role in mitigating risk. Integrated with Yubo since 2019, it works a bit differently than your standard age estimation scheme (for example, one that guesses a user is over 18 and therefore allowed to access pornography).

In Yubo’s case, users provide a date of birth on sign-up, and Yoti’s age estimation tech analyzes a live in-app selfie video to determine whether the face matches the declared age. Basically, the tool makes sure people are as old as they say they are.

That said, it is also an effective age gate, thanks to the high accuracy of Yoti’s facial age estimation across age groups – including whether someone is under or over 13, the legally required age to use Yubo.

To date, Yoti has performed more than 290 million age checks for Yubo. The firm says around 87 percent of people are able to successfully verify their age at first attempt.

If Yoti can’t find a match in comparing a selfie to a birth date, it moves on to further age verification measures, which can include providing a new live image for review by a Yubo safety specialist.

Yubo sees age estimation as business advantage

The caution is paying off, both in terms of safety and user satisfaction. The firm claims an October 2024 survey shows that more than 79 percent of Yubo users say they feel more safe on Yubo compared to other social platforms because of the app’s age assurance measures. More than 60 percent say age estimation has “a positive impact on their overall user experience on the app.”

Beyond being secure in the knowledge that no one is lying about their age, the live video requirement for Yoti’s facial age estimation has helped Yubo reduce the number of bots and fake accounts by confirming every account belongs to a real person.

Yubo says establishing facial age estimation requirements platform-wide makes it the first social app in the world to have age assurance for 100 percent of its users. It attributes its growth in part to how it puts trust at the center of the user experience, noting how age estimation boosts user engagement and retention by prioritizing safety, trust and satisfaction.

Yubo CEO Sacha Lazimi says he is “proud that Yubo’s continued growth after almost a decade in the highly competitive landscape of social apps can stand as a symbol of our philosophy that user safety needs and business objectives do not have to be at odds with one another.”

Yoti, meanwhile, announced in a recent blog that it has reached the milestone of 14 million global downloads for its Digital ID apps.

The takeaway message from Yubo and Yoti’s partnership is that, while age assurance measures are often seen as a necessity forced on businesses by draconian regulators looking to stifle growth, they can actually provide firms with strategic advantages.

According to Juniper Research, experts have predicted that the number of digital identity verification checks will surpass 70 billion by the end of 2024. Perhaps age assurance is destined to be the Alligator Pear of the twenty-first century: distrusted at first as a little unappealing, but soon embraced everywhere as that versatile and beloved staple, the avocado.

Article Topics

age estimation  |  age verification  |  biometrics  |  children  |  digital ID  |  selfie biometrics  |  social media  |  Yoti