US EditionSocial Media Companies Are Fighting the 'Age Verification Trap' as Collecting Biometrics on Kids Violates Privacy Rights
371 security and privacy experts warn age verification on social media risks user privacy and security, urging a pause until safer technology is developed.
- Social media companies are confronting a privacy paradox as they push age checks amid landmark legal and regulatory reckoning, but experts warn no tool reliably verifies age without infringing privacy rights.
- Regulators including the Federal Trade Commission and 32 U.S. states have accelerated action, with last week’s FTC enforcement discretion on COPPA amid Australia’s 2024 ban on minors' accounts.
- The technical reality is that accurate age models rely on biometrics or IDs, as platforms use facial scans, video selfies, thumbprint passcodes, and government ID uploads despite 15 million Americans lacking IDs and a Discord vendor 5CA breach exposing over 70,000 IDs.
- Children's advocates and researchers warn of social isolation and evasion as selective bans create an 'island effect' and children evade checks in a 'whack-a-mole' pattern, limiting impact.
- Experts are pushing for zero-knowledge proofs and device-based verification approaches as AI models and bias concerns persist, warning intrusive biometrics will keep normalizing privacy risks.
12 Articles
12 Articles
In the physical world, age limitation is quite effective: without a document indicating the age of majority, it is difficult to buy tobacco, enter a casino or watch live pornography. Although it has always been possible to falsify or use someone else’s card, the digital world has facilitated access to prohibited content for millions of minors. Now governments around the world are trying to make the digital world more like the physical world, at …
Social media companies are fighting the 'age verification trap' as collecting biometrics on kids violates privacy rights
Big Social is reaching its Big Tobacco moment as it regulations intensify and social media companies look to implement age verification methods on its platforms.
Professors, researchers, or doctors specializing in digital or data protection evoke in a text published this Monday, March 2, their "great concern" regarding the various pieces of legislation in preparation.
More than 350 researchers from around 30 countries called for a moratorium on the various projects to verify the age of Internet users, including access to social networks, in an open letter published on Monday and transmitted to the AFP.
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