Age assurance has been a bit of a contentious issue in Europe, with countries like the UK pushing for age verification measures to access porn websites. Now, Google has outlined its position on age assurance, saying that these methods should match the risk level - for example, less intrusive methods could be used for general content like news and education, while stronger checks are reserved for high-risk areas like adult content and alcohol sales.
The search giant said that responsibility for age-checking should lie with the service owner, such as the developer, publisher, or app creator, as they are in the best position to know their offering. This position is in direct contradiction to the view floated by some that checks should be done at the operating system level to ensure more coverage.
The risk-based approach has been used by Google in its own European services since 2020. The base layer is age declaration, the middle layer is age estimation which uses machine learning and account information, and the final layer is age verification, which should only be used in limited cases.
Giving an example of how all this works, Google shared what it is doing. By default, it uses baseline protections like age restricting mature content on YouTube and Google Play until it is confident the user is an adult. If a user declares they are 18 or over, it runs their account information through a machine learning model to confirm the age.
If the ML model can’t determine the user’s age, features like SafeSearch and wellbeing tools are automatically enabled. Finally, for users who can’t be confirmed as adults but want to access mature content, verification methods are offered, including selfies, government IDs, or credit cards.
Google staunchly opposes everyone providing IDs to access all internet services, warning that there are hidden costs. It said that universal verification threatens privacy and excludes people who don’t have a government ID. Another issue is that it could create a false sense of security, allowing companies to neglect investing in safeguards and age-appropriate experiences.
Only time will tell which approach governments will take, but one thing is for sure, age assurance is here to stay.