"The government says its ban, which comes into effect in December, is designed to limit the harmful impacts of social media. The policy has been touted as a world-first and is being watched closely by leaders globally. Under the new laws, platforms must take "reasonable steps" to prevent Australian children from creating accounts on their sites, and deactivate existing ones."
"It looked at a variety of methods - including formal verification using government documents, parental approval, or technologies to determine age based on facial structure, gestures, or behaviours - and found all were technically possible. "But we did not find a single ubiquitous solution that would suit all use cases, nor did we find solutions that were guaranteed to be effective in all deployments," it said."
"Australia - like much of the world - has in recent years seen a series of high-profile data breaches, including several where sensitive personal information was stolen and sold or published. Facial assessment technology was 92% accurate for people aged 18 or over, but there is a "buffer zone" - about two to three years either side of 16 - in which is it is less accurate."
Australia will ban social media accounts for under-16s, requiring platforms to take reasonable steps to block account creation and deactivate existing accounts, with the law taking effect in December. Independent testing examined identity-document checks, parental approval workflows, and technologies that infer age from facial structure, gestures, or behaviour. Testing found no single ubiquitous solution suitable across all use cases and no method guaranteed effective in all deployments. Identity-document checks are the most accurate but raise data-retention and sharing risks in a context of recent high-profile breaches. Facial assessment shows about 92% accuracy for adults but weaker accuracy within a two-to-three-year buffer around age 16, prompting privacy and reliability concerns.
Read at www.bbc.com
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