Google begins rolling out age assurance in app store in response to US laws

Age verification has hit Google’s Play store. Having implemented its age inference system on YouTube, the tech giant has apparently answered calls for age assurance at the app store level.

According to a report from Android Authority, user Artem Russakovskii shared screenshots of the verification prompt in a post on X. The shots in question show a screen that offers users several options for age verification. These include taking a photo of a government ID, facial age estimation through a selfie, credit card verification or email-based age inference, the latter of which is provided by the UK’s Verifymy (and which the author commends as the “quickest, easiest, and most privacy-preserving way to verify your age online”).

The facial age estimation (FAE) option says Google “partners with a company that specializes in estimating age,” but does not include the name of the company. Verifymy does provide biometric facial age estimation, but Google has also developed its own FAE technology, which appears on the Age Check Certification Scheme (ACCS)’s registry of approved providers.

Regardless, Google appears to be anticipating the continued spread of age assurance laws across the U.S. A post from the company points to legislation in Texas, Louisiana and Utah as a catalyst for the app store age check rollout.

The company is taking a phased approach that factors in regional regulations, so the process could look different, depending on where you are in the world.

ECGs offer high accuracy age estimation during adolescence: research

Biometric facial age estimation is mature enough to be considered a “highly effective” method if used correctly. But it’s still at the beginning of its technological evolution. A new research paper published in NPJ Biomedical Innovations describes an experiment that tests age estimation using electrocardiogram (ECG) signals.

“ECG signals, reflecting heart activity, offer a promising alternative” to traditional age assurance methods, says the abstract. That’s because, like faces, they have age-specific characteristics.

The team says prior research has largely relied on hospital-grade ECGs, rather than real-world use cases.

“To address this, we created a novel data set using smartwatch ECGs from 220 individuals across a broad age range. By testing various features and machine learning models, we achieved a mean absolute error (MAE) of 2.93 years – outperforming clinical ECG-based studies. Accuracy peaked during adolescence, when ECG changes are most pronounced.”

“These findings highlight smartwatch ECG’s potential for accurate and privacy-respecting age estimation.”

Article Topics

age inference  |  age verification  |  app store age verification  |  biometric age estimation  |  facial age estimation (FAE)  |  Google  |  VerifyMy