Age assurance regulations push sites to weigh risks and explore options for compliance

Online age assurance laws have taken effect in certain jurisdictions, prompting platforms to look carefully at what they’re liable for going forward. Biometric age assurance technology is waiting in the wings, offering face biometrics-based products for age verification and age estimation.

Discord experiments with face biometrics for age assurance

Discord is the latest major platform to implement age assurance measures. The popular chat and messaging app’s new requirement for some UK and Australia users to perform age verification through face biometrics or an upload of an ID document to access sensitive content.

Discord calls the age assurance trial an “experiment.”

“We’re currently running tests in select regions to age-gate access to certain spaces or user settings,” says a statement from the company. “The information shared to power the age verification method is only used for the one-time age verification process and is not stored by Discord or our vendor. For Face Scan, the solution our vendor uses operates on-device, which means there is no collection of any biometric information when you scan your face. For ID verification, the scan of your ID is deleted upon verification.”

Although the article does not specify which vendor Discord is using for age assurance, screenshots of the interface include the logo of k-ID, a firm that aggregates regulatory requirements around the world to automate compliance. (Speaking at the 2025 Global Age Assurance Standards Summit, k-ID’s Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Luc Delany joked that the firm is half engineers and half lawyers.) For document verification, text in the screenshots reads, “we use Veratad to scan and validate your ID document.”

K-ID offers a variety of methods under its platform, which also includes parental controls.

Age verification or age estimation for Discord can be performed with facial scans through a computer or smartphone webcam, or by scanning a QR code leading to a portal for securely scanning a driver’s license or other valid form of ID for proof of age. The process may be triggered when users attempt to access content that has been flagged by Discord’s systems as being sensitive in nature, or when changing settings to enable access to sensitive content.

Yubo advises companies to get in on age assurance now

As laws in Australia, the UK, the EU, the US and elsewhere shape the global discourse on age assurance technology, companies that prioritized it early are beginning to look prescient.

Onesuch is Yubo, a social platform that aims to enable users to “connect with peers worldwide based on shared interests rather than performance metrics such as likes or followers.” In 2024, Yubo began requiring age assurance for all of its users, for which it hired Yoti to provide selfie-based facial age estimation.

Writing for Crunchbase News, Yubo CEO Sacha Lazimi discusses the value of “safety innovation” in providing meaningful differentiation, and says the firm recognized from day one that “growth and safety must work in tandem.”

“We’ve discovered that age assurance isn’t just about mitigating safety risks,” he says. “It’s a powerful tool for building trust among users, a critical second-order effect of what’s typically categorized primarily as a safety measure.”

Yubo’s data supports his case: he notes a recent poll of more than 10,000 users, in which 79 percent “reported feeling safer on Yubo compared to other platforms due to our verification requirements.” Trust equates to comfort, which matures into loyalty. “More than 60 percent said age verification positively impacted their overall experience, while 53 percent indicated increased trust that they’re interacting with real people.”

Fewer bots, compliance with regulations, and, most importantly, robust trust and safety infrastructure: such are the benefits of age assurance. Lazimi recommends that organizations be proactive in pursuing tools that suit their particular use cases, noting how “startups that build from the beginning gain significant advantages over those forced to retrofit solutions under regulatory pressure.”

He says to use a layered approach, be aware of regulatory developments, measure trust as a growth metric, and iterate continuously to stay ahead of emerging challenges.

“For startup founders, the message is clear,” he says. “Investing in age assurance is no longer optional – it’s a strategic necessity.”

YouTube exemption in Australia riles big social media firms

One potential wrench in the gears of online legislation is YouTube. The platform that has replaced TV as the go-to place to watch video content has been granted an exemption from Australia’s social media ban for users under 16. Bloomberg reports that Australian Communications Minister Michelle Rowland “gave a personal guarantee to YouTube’s CEO that the platform would be exempt from the country’s social-media ban for under-16s.”

The exemption has outraged Meta, TikTok and other major social media firms, who have labeled it “a sweetheart deal.” Ostensibly, YouTube is exempt because it provides health or educational benefits. Indeed, many parents will be familiar with the presence of YouTube in the classroom.

However, ByteDance Ltd.’s, which owns TikTok, does not see it that way. The firm is calling for the exemption to be cancelled, arguing that YouTube’s short-form videos are “virtually indistinguishable” from its own and that giving YouTube a pass “would be akin to banning the sale of soft drinks to minors but exempting Coca-Cola.”

The caloric and gustatory qualities of YouTube notwithstanding, ByteDance’s argument could open a new discussion in age assurance circles. In classifying online harms to kids, pornography usually takes the top position. YouTube does not allow pornographic content – but its harms are less defined, and arguably more sinister: stories have circulated of kids left unattended to the algorithm, shown disturbing AI-generated imagery.

So while it’s easy enough to point to plain old sexual intercourse as age-restricted content, the question of what actually harms kids online continues to reveal itself over time.

Article Topics

age estimation  |  age verification  |  biometrics  |  Discord  |  document verification  |  face biometrics  |  k-ID  |  Veratad  |  YouTube  |  Yubo