Australia’s world-first Age Assurance Technology Trial, aimed at enforcing a ban on under-16s using social media, is facing criticism.
While the trial has shown strong accuracy among child users, concerns have been raised about the effectiveness of age verification technologies, including biometric screening and document checks, especially given Australia’s ethnic diversity.
The trial involves over 50 tech platforms, including Meta and Snapchat, and is being reviewed by the federal government to determine platform suitability.
A final report is expected by June, with social media platforms anticipated to enforce age restrictions by the end of 2025. The federal trial includes everything from selfie-based facial recognition to systems that analyse hand movements and store data on customised blockchains.
But beneath the surface lies friction — not just over the tech’s effectiveness, but also its vulnerability to evasion, the privacy trade-offs, and how little scrutiny some vendors are facing over their bold claims.
More worryingly, the companies creating these tools — IDVerse, AgeCheck, Yoti — have little sway over the actual gatekeepers: Meta, Snap, and Google.
The platforms tasked with enforcing the future law aren’t building the tech, nor are they meaningfully collaborating on its development. Unsurprisingly, they may resist adopting it altogether.
Evidence of this is already visible. Apple has reportedly ignored repeated outreach attempts. Its own age solution for iOS simply shifts the burden — putting parents, developers, and governments in a convoluted chain of responsibility.
Google’s approach fares no better: a Google Wallet-based system that asks users to upload ID and trust a yet-to-materialize privacy technology, all while bypassing the practical need to integrate with competitors like Meta — who, notably, don’t even allow Google logins.
And in a perplexing twist, while these companies sidestep Australia’s verification efforts, Google is pushing AI companions for under-13s — platforms that eerily resemble solitary social networks, and conveniently fall outside the new ban’s scope.
In 2023 the federal government rejected mandating verification technologies for age-gating pornography sites. It found them “immature” with significant limitations.
