UK bill amendments propose highly effective age assurance for social media, VPNs

A group of House of Lords peers have tabled amendments that could have big implications for social media companies, VPN sellers and providers of age verification tech.

In the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, a new amendment focuses on promoting children’s wellbeing in relation to social media.

If the Act is passed, the UK’s Secretary of State would have to direct the most senior medical officers to prepare and publish advice on social media use by children. But it is the second part of the amendment that’s more eye-catching.

The amendment also calls for requiring social media to use highly-effective age assurance measures to prevent children under 16 from using such services. The language used is not exactly water-tight however. Here’s the amendment verbatim (and seemingly with a typo):

“By regulations made my statutory instrument require all regulated user-to-user services to use highly-effective age assurance measures to prevent children under the age of 16 from becoming or being users.”

To prevent under-16s from “becoming or being users” of social media would be big news for the UK if the amendment becomes law. The amendment is listed on page 21 of the bill and can be found here.

Age verification and children’s social media use has received sharper attention worldwide since Australia enforced its social media ban for children. The Australian government has seen legal challenges from an opposition politician and teens as well as from Reddit which says that it curbs political communication for children and that its platform should not be considered social media.

The UK bill’s amendments are tabled up to December 9 and include various additions aimed at securing children’s wellbeing. Beyond social media, it also includes amendments for banning children from using VPNs. Following the imposition of the Online Safety Act (OSA), VPNs have seen huge spikes in downloads, but Childnet says its survey results show children are not responsible for the increase.

Under an amendment, VPN providers would be compelled to implement age assurance for all UK users to ensure no one using the service is under 18. The watchdog OFCOM would produce guidance for VPN providers to assist them in complying with the child VPN prohibition.

The government would also set up a monitoring regime that would enforce measures and penalize non-compliance.

The proposals are being considered at the Report Stage of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill in the House of Lords, which is the UK’s upper legislative chamber. The amendment must still be voted through both the Lords and the House of Commons to become law.

It will be a long road as the Lords debate the proposals, before the MPs in the House of Commons continue the process. But the fact the UK has tabled such legislation is significant and means the giant technology companies operating social media platforms will be paying close attention.

Article Topics

age verification  |  biometric age estimation  |  biometrics  |  children  |  Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill  |  legislation  |  social media  |  UK age verification  |  VPN (virtual private network)