Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul
You seem to confuse desire with reality.
There is little indication it will succeed, people always find ways around measures.
|
Ofcom research has found that 20% of children aged between 8 and 17 in the UK have lied about their age in order to join sites that aren't meant for them.
This figure has been consistent for the last two years, despite the efforts of websites to introduce age verification and other tools by technology firms.
Protecting children from harm will be a legal requirement once the Online Safety Act is fully operational in 2025 and website owners will be required to ensure that children below the age of 13 do not have access to their sites.
In Australia they are in the process of banning social media for those under 16.
Broadly speaking, in order to comply with this, websites are to introduce age verification by the use of a document such as school or bank records, age estimation by looking at the things that vary with age, such as facial features or voice and looking at things that mean that they are likely to be an adult eg are they married, do they have a mortgage etc. If they are in breach of this requirement they can be fined up to $32.5 million dollars.
As they are often the same companies involved, I suspect that websites in the UK will follow suit in order to meet next year's requirements.