Ofcom has outlined four ways social media platforms can verify the ages of millions of users, as part of efforts to enforce an under-18 ban. The regulator’s report, published today, identifies photo ID matching, banking-based checks, digital identity services and facial age estimation as the only ‘highly-effective’ methods for proving a teenager’s age.
What the age checks involve
Photo ID matching is a two-part process: users upload a government-issued identification card, such as a passport or driving licence, and then enable their laptop or phone to take a photo, which is scanned to see if it matches the photo on the ID. Banking-based checks rely on banks telling the platform if the user is over 16, since official ID is needed to open an account.
Digital identity services allow users to create a ‘digital ID’ that can be flashed, similar to systems used to rent a home. Facial age estimation involves software scanning a person’s face to estimate their age.
Ofcom’s guidance is not law and would need government approval. The government says some adults will not need to pass through an age gate, as identity checks are called, if they already have an account. However, Ofcom stresses that many over-18 users will need to prove their age to keep scrolling, with additional options available to them.
Additional checks for adults
Credit card checks involve uploading credit card details which a payment processor verifies as valid. Mobile Network Operator checks use the automatic ‘content restriction filter’ on pay-as-you-go and contract SIMs, which is removed once the user proves they are an adult and is shared with the service being accessed. Email estimation works by a platform checking whether an email address has been used for mature purposes, such as with mortgage lenders.
Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, gaming sites, certain AI tools and livestreaming services could all be restricted. Metro has approached some of Britain’s biggest banks to see if they would assist social media age-checks if the measure became law, but the burden is on the respective tech companies to enforce the under-18 ban.
Enforcement and concerns
Enforcement could also include websites checking how long an account has been active, whether it interacts with other underage users, or if usage times are consistent with school hours. Ofcom boss Dame Melanie Dawes said: ‘This ban will shape the future of children’s lives online, so it’s important to get it right. It can work if social media firms do highly effective age checks properly, and we’ve set out ways that could be achieved.’
Andy Lulham, chief operating officer at the age-verification tool Verifymy, told Metro that the issue is there are fewer ways to verify a teen’s age, since minors do not have credit cards or full driving licences. He noted that not all face-scanning technology is 100% accurate. ‘That creates a trade-off: to keep almost all 15-year-olds out, a number of 16- and 17-year-olds will not pass either,’ he said. ‘The challenge will be for these legitimate users, who will then have to use documents, if they have them.’
This is why Ofcom’s suggestions are ‘tougher’ than Australia’s social media ban methods, which ask tech giants to take ‘reasonable steps’. Within a month of the ban going into effect in Australia, nearly 5 million social media accounts belonging to teenagers were deactivated or removed. Yet experts warn the ban has largely failed at keeping young teens off platforms, with seven in 10 parents saying their children were still on age-restricted services. Teens have, among other things, doodled facial hair to fool age-estimating scans or made new accounts pretending to be an older sibling.
‘A few under-16s will inevitably find a way around the checks, but that should not stop us from making sure most cannot,’ Lulham added. ‘It might take time, but this should start a cultural shift. Many children get their first smartphone when they start secondary school, and the hope is that they are no longer immediately immersed in the world of social media, where online harms do exist.’
Big Brother Watch, a digital privacy campaign group, said on X that the social media ban amounts to a ‘back door’ national ID system. ‘Hundreds of thousands of people without ID, who tend to be poorer people, and many more who don’t want to risk handing their passports over to foreign tech companies will be locked out of huge parts of the internet,’ it said. ‘The plan will kill anonymity online, whilst the UK’s culture of speech policing is reaching a crisis point.’
