Age assurance

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An image of a person entering their credit card details into a laptop
Articles Oct 10, 2023

Exploring bias in credit card-based age verification

We publish the accuracy rates of our facial age estimation technology, split by gender, age and skin tone. By being open and transparent, we hope to give businesses and users confidence in the technology. We also hope this helps regulators to fairly review facial age estimation as an effective age assurance method. However whilst evaluating facial age estimation, some stakeholders and regulators overlook the drawbacks and bias shown in other age assurance approaches.   Bias and limitations of using credit cards for age verification One age check method approved in many countries is asking adults to use a credit card

#age assurance#yoti
profile picture Yoti
7 min read
An image of a person's smartphone. The person is using Yoti's facial age estimation technology. Next to this image, the text reads: "externally audited, over 600 million age checks, used by leading brands". Underneath this list are the logos of Instagram, Aldi, SuperAwesome and Only Fans.
Articles Sep 14, 2023

Age assurance: What makes for the maturity of a technology or an industry?

Last week, the Australian government decided against the eSafety Commissioner’s recommendation of a pilot before requiring adult sites to verify the ages of visitors. They said this was due to concerns about the privacy of people’s data and the maturity of age assurance technology. So what exactly would constitute a mature technology? Is it something comparable to NASA’s Technology Readiness level? This suggests the technology needs to have gone through a thorough process of research and prototyping, before testing in a live environment and then ultimately rolling it out. If that’s the case, we can say that Yoti and other

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profile picture Chris Field
7 min read
An image of a young person looking at a phone screen. The content on the phone has been blurred out. It has been replaced with a graphic of a crossed-out eye and the words "sensitive content".
Articles Sep 12, 2023

Understanding age assurance in the Online Safety Act

The Online Safety Act 2023 is a piece of UK legislation that aims to protect children and adults online. It covers a wide range of issues including minimising the risk of children seeing harmful and age-inappropriate content, removing illegal content like child sexual abuse material (CSAM), criminalising fraudulent and scam ads, and introducing age verification for certain online services. This blog looks at some of the age requirements in the Online Safety Act and what this means for tech companies, adult sites, gaming companies, social media platforms and dating sites.  What is the purpose of the Online Safety Act 2023?

#age assurance#regulation
profile picture Rachael Trotman
10 min read
An infographic detailing the stages of effective facial age estimation. This is presented as three layers. The first layer is facial age estimation with liveness detection only. The description reads "check the person behind the camera is a 'live' person and not a photo or video." The second layer adds independent testing. The description reads "have a credible third party assess the technology for data compliance, bias and accuracy". The third layer adds injection attack detection. It reads "add robust anti-spoofing technology at the point an image is being taken to detect injection attacks.
Articles Aug 03, 2023

Effective facial age estimation: a privacy-preserving approach to age assurance

For platforms to deliver age-appropriate content, they need to know the age of their users. Age estimation technology can provide an inclusive and accessible solution. It’s possible to estimate a person’s age from a number of features, including their voice, face, palm or fingerprints. Some age estimation methods are very accurate. Others collect little or even no personal data. But very few can do both. When done to a high standard, effective facial age estimation can offer a high level of privacy and a high level of assurance.   Age estimation in the real world Consider the following situation: a

#age assurance#yoti
profile picture Amba Karsondas
8 min read
Infographic displaying the stages of doing effective age verification with ID documents. Namely, Document authenticity check (low assurance) + Proof of ownership (medium assurance) + Liveness check (high assurance).
Articles Jul 11, 2023

Effective Age Verification: Going beyond reading a date of birth on an ID

Regulators around the world are recognising that more needs to be done to protect children from harmful content online. From the Age Appropriate Design Code and the Digital Services Act to the upcoming Online Safety Bill and California Age Appropriate Design Code, businesses are being required to have age-appropriate controls in place. But to do this, they need to know the age of those accessing their services. After all, if they don’t know someone’s age, they can’t protect them. This raises some important questions. How should companies verify the ages of their users? How can they ensure age verification is

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profile picture Amba Karsondas
6 min read
Free digital ID age checks poster with two smartphones showing two methods of age checks: Age estimation and Digital ID verified "age over" attributes
Articles Jun 22, 2023

Free Digital ID age checks

With so much of our lives spent online – we can chat to friends, watch our favourite shows, and expand our learning – it’s so important to make sure children are only accessing age-appropriate content.  In the UK, the Age Appropriate Design Code (the ‘AADC’, also called the Children’s Code) will soon be complemented by the Online Safety Bill. In the US, California has passed its own version of the AADC which comes into force from 1st July 2024. An increasing number of US regulators are also bringing in legislation which requires social media and adult platforms to verify the

#age assurance#business
profile picture Rachael Trotman
6 min read