Large online platforms are rapidly shifting to biometric age assurance systems, creating a scenario where users may lose access to their accounts or risk exposing sensitive personal information if automated systems make mistakes.
Online platforms have struggled for decades with how to screen underage users from adult-oriented content. Everything from graphic music tracks on Spotify to violent clips circulating on TikTok has long been available with minimal restrictions.
Recent regulatory pressure has changed this landscape. Laws such as the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act and new state-level legislation in the United States have pushed companies including Reddit, Spotify, YouTube, and several adult-content distributors to deploy AI-driven age estimation and identity verification technologies. Pornhub’s parent company, Aylo, is also reevaluating whether it can comply with these laws after being blocked in more than a dozen US states.
These new systems require users to hand over highly sensitive personal data. Age estimation relies on analyzing one or more facial photos to infer a user’s age. Verification is more exact, but demands that the user upload a government-issued ID, which is among the most sensitive forms of personal documentation a person can share online.
Both methods depend heavily on automated facial recognition algorithms. The absence of human oversight or robust appeals mechanisms magnifies the consequences when these tools misclassify users. Inco
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