Children are drawing on moustaches and entering fake birthdays to bypass online age gates and access social media and gaming platforms, a new report has suggested.
Key Findings
The research from online safety organisation Internet Matters found that more than a third of children in the UK have found a way around age verification measures implemented as part of the Online Safety Act. This legislation requires all pornographic sites, social media, and online platforms likely to be accessed by children to check their age.
Social media websites usually require children to be at least 13, and users of pornographic sites must be over 18. The new research suggests one in six parents have helped their child to get past age verification checks, with children reporting “tricking” platforms into thinking they are older.
Parental Involvement
Parents also said they had caught their children drawing on facial hair in a bid to evade the technology. One mother said: “I did catch my son using an eyebrow pencil to draw a moustache on his face, and it verified him as 15 years old.”
From a sample of 1,000 UK children, 46 per cent said they believed age checks are easy to bypass, while 32 per cent admitted to having done so. Researchers also found 49 per cent of children said they had encountered harmful content online recently.
Call for Enforcement
The report said changes suggest the Online Safety Act is “beginning to shape children’s online environments for the better”, but called on the government to hold regulators and platforms to account. “Children continue to encounter harmful content at unacceptable rates, while age verification measures are often ineffective in practice or easy to bypass,” it said.
“Government must ensure existing legislation is properly enforced and hold both regulators and platforms to account where it is not. It must also address gaps in the law without delay.”
Government and Regulator Response
It comes as the government consults over whether to introduce a wide range of age curbs and limitations on social media for under-16s. A Department for Science, Innovation and Technology spokesperson said the law is “crystal clear” in demanding platforms protect children from harmful content.
“Companies must stop turning a blind eye while children are exposed to harm,” they added. “Ofcom has our full backing to use its enforcement powers against those who fail to comply with the law.”
They said the government had also launched a consultation looking at “everything from age limits and safer design features” to a full social media ban, adding they will “act based on the latest evidence”.
An Ofcom spokesperson said: “This report underlines why the Online Safety Act matters. Without protections like robust age checks, children have been routinely exposed to risks they didn’t choose, on services they can’t realistically avoid. Weak or easily bypassed age checks are not good enough.
“In the UK, our rules make tech firms responsible for keeping the platforms children use safer. While progress is being made, we’re clear that there is still more to do. We’ve challenged the biggest services in the world to do more to protect children, and won’t hesitate to act where they fall short.”
