UK teens may need to prove their age with ID or a face scan before entering social media.

The Story

Ofcom has four workable age checks, but the UK still has to decide how much private data protection should cost.

Ofcom’s report treats age assurance as a technical route to enforcing a proposed under-16 social-media restriction. The practical menu is narrow at the 16 threshold: photo ID, digital identity, banking checks and facial age estimation. The ordinary institutional reading is that a combination of methods can protect children, but implementation still has to address accessibility, privacy, interoperability and circumvention.

• ImplementationPlatforms may combine estimation, account signals or other checks with ID or identity-service fallbacks.
• AccessSome younger users may face greater difficulty proving age because fewer acceptable methods are available to them.
• SafeguardsThe final system will need rules governing vendors, data handling, errors and people who cannot use standard documents.

• Ofcom assessed four methods as capable of being highly effective at 16: photo ID, digital ID, banking checks and facial age estimation.ofcom +2
• The assessment was commissioned to inform decisions about a proposed UK social-media ban for under-16s, with detailed implementation still to be determined.ofcom +1
• Ofcom identified accessibility and inclusivity as issues, noting that people under 18 are more likely to need photo ID or an ID fallback.ofcom +1