Australia to let Big Tech choose kids social media ban tech

"The Land Down Under decided to prevent social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, X and YouTube, from offering their services to kids on grounds that their products are harmful. That decision went down well with many Australians, riled Big Tech, and earned scorn from the technical community because the relevant laws passed before completion of a full assessment of age assurance technology."

"A preliminary report on tests of the tech found it works imperfectly. Justin Warren, the Founder and Principal Analyst of Australian firm PivotNine and a technology rights advocate, summarized the findings of a final report on tests of age assurance technology as follows: "Theoretically, if you pick a specific set of tools, and use them under carefully controlled conditions, you can do age assurance sometimes." Australia is plowing ahead regardless, and on Tuesday issued guidance [PDF] on how to implement age assurance."

"The core requirement is to take "reasonable steps" to ensure that kids can't use a platform, which means not relying on users to reveal their age, or guessing age after letting people use a platform. However, the guidance warns "There is no one-size fits all approach for what constitutes the taking of reasonable steps." Australia instead wants platforms to adopt a "waterfall approach" in which they use "multiple independent age assurance methods sequentially to establish an age assurance result.""

Australia requires social media platforms to keep children under sixteen off services starting December 10, obliging operators to take reasonable steps beyond self-declared ages. Platforms must not rely solely on users revealing age or on post-hoc age guesses after access. The regulator expects a waterfall approach using multiple independent age-assurance methods sequentially to establish age results. Tests showed age-assurance technologies work imperfectly: carefully chosen tools used under controlled conditions can sometimes verify age but are not consistently reliable. The guidance lists several useful techniques, including account age, engagement with child-targeted content, and linguistic analysis.

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