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Tom's Guide
05-08-2025
- Politics
- Tom's Guide
An extra 5 million age checks a day are being completed thanks to the UK's Online Safety Act
New data suggests there has been an additional five million age verification checks every day in the UK since the introduction of the Online Safety Act. Sites hosting content deemed harmful for under 18s must now verify the age of visitors. But many see this as a significant privacy and cybersecurity risk – and have turned to the best VPNs in an attempt to bypass the checks. The Online Safety Act has triggered an important discussion about online privacy and there are strong views from both supporters and critics of the law. Those backing the law, including the UK government, have said it's doing a vital job at protecting children online. However, the law's opponents have said it comes with significant cybersecurity risks and compromises online privacy. One cybersecurity expert called it a "disaster waiting to happen." According to the Age Verification Providers Association (AVPA) there has been a significant increase in daily age verification checks online. As reported in the Guardian, the AVPA's Executive Director, Iain Corby said: "As a result of new codes under the Online Safety Act coming into force on Friday, we have seen an additional five million age checks on a daily basis, as UK-based internet users seek to access sites that are age-restricted." The AVPA said it couldn't share a baseline comparison to this figure, but some sites introduced age verification checks before the Online Safety Act became law. Reddit, X, and Spotify are just some of the sites you might have to verify your age to access all its content. But there have also been reports of overreach and content not traditionally seen as harmful being blocked. The UK government said "platforms should not arbitrarily block or remove content and instead must take a risk-based, proportionate approach to child safety duties." It went on to say "the act is not designed to censor political debate and does not require platforms to age gate any content other than those which present the most serious risks to children." However research by the BBC found that reports on the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine have been blocked as a result of the Online Safety Act. There has been vocal opposition to the law and a petition demanding the UK government repeals the act is approaching 500,000 signatures. The UK government has said it wouldn't repeal the act, adding that it is "working closely with Ofcom to implement the Act as quickly and effectively as possible to enable UK users to benefit from its protections." "Proportionality is a core principle of the act and is in-built into its duties," the UK government said. "As regulator for the online safety regime, OFCOM must consider the size and risk level of different types and kinds of services when recommending steps providers can take to comply with requirements." MP Peter Kyle, Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, is one of the law's biggest supporters. He said the law "marks the most significant step forward in child safety since the internet was created" and that "age verification keeps children safe." However Kyle has also made controversial comments towards opponents of the law and in a tweet said you "are on the side of predators" if you wanted to overturn the Online Safety Act. The law has received support from an array of children's charities and YouGov research found that 69% of Britons are in favor of age verification checks. However, this is down from the 80% support recorded prior to the law's introduction and only 26% had encountered age checks online. Furthermore, 64% said it would be "not very / not at all effective" in preventing under 18s from accessing harmful content. Regardless of the positives, and the well intentioned nature of the law, there are fundamental privacy and cybersecurity concerns that need to be addressed. People don't feel comfortable handing over sensitive personal information to third-party age check providers such as AgeGO, Persona, and Yoti. Each provider has a different approach to data security, with some deleting it straight away and others holding it for some period of time. Any data being stored is at risk of a breach and the impact of one could be catastrophic. The recent Tea app breach exposed the ID of thousands of women in the US – an age verification provider breach could be even worse. Major VPN providers surged up the UK Apple App Store charts as people looked for ways to avoid age verification checks. Suspect free VPNs also rose in popularity and put people's data at risk in different ways. These privacy and cybersecurity concerns must be appropriately addressed, and not cast aside, should the UK government want the Online Safety Act to succeed in the best way it can. We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example: 1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service). 2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad. We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.
The Guardian
30-07-2025
- The Guardian
UK online safety law leads to 5m extra age checks a day and surge in VPN use
Five million extra online age checks a day are being carried out in the UK since the introduction of age-gating for pornography sites, according to new data. The Age Verification Providers Association (AVPA) said there had been a sharp increase in additional age checks in the UK since Friday, when age verification became mandatory for accessing pornography under the Online Safety Act. 'As a result of new codes under the Online Safety Act coming into force on Friday, we have seen an additional 5m age checks on a daily basis, as UK-based internet users seek to access sites that are age-restricted,' said Iain Corby, the executive director of the AVPA. The UK has also seen a surge in popularity of virtual private networks, which obscure a user's real location and thus allow them to access sites blocked in their own country. Four of the top five free apps on the Apple download store in the UK are VPN apps, with Proton, the most popular, reporting a 1,800% increase in downloads. Last week the UK's communications regulator and enforcer of the act, Ofcom, indicated that it could start formal investigations into inadequate age checking this week. Ofcom said it would be actively checking compliance with age-checking requirements and if necessary would launch investigations into individual services. The AVPA, the trade association for age-verification companies in Britain, surveyed members who were carrying out checks for UK pornography providers. These providers were required to introduce 'highly effective' age verification on 25 July. The age-checking companies were asked to submit 'the volume of checks you carried out today for highly effective age assurance'. The AVPA said it could not offer a baseline comparison but effective age assurance was new to dedicated pornography sites in the UK. Previously, many porn sites in the UK only required users to tick a box to verify their age. An Ofcom spokesperson said: 'Until now, kids could easily stumble across porn and other online content that's harmful to them without even looking for it. Age checks will help prevent that. We're now assessing compliance to make sure platforms have them in place, and companies that fall short should expect to face enforcement action.' Ofcom has said service providers should not encourage users to deploy VPNs in order to circumvent age controls. Punishments for breaching the Online Safety Act, including for inadequate age-checking procedures, range from 10% of worldwide revenue to blocking access to the site or app in extreme cases. Age-assurance methods supported by Ofcom and offered by AVPA members include facial age estimation, where technology assesses a person's likely age through a live photo or video; checking a person's age via their credit card provider, bank or mobile phone network operator; photo ID matching, where a passport or similar ID is checked against a selfie; or a 'digital identity wallet' that contains proof of age. Major pornography providers including Pornhub, the UK's most popular pornography site, have pledged to implement the strict age checks required under the act. The act also requires sites and apps to shield children from other forms of harmful material, particularly content that encourages suicide, self-harm and eating disorders. It requires tech platforms to suppress the spread of content that is abusive or incites hatred against people with protected characteristics under the Equality Act such as age, race and sex. Free speech campaigners have said the child-harm content restrictions have led to material on X being age-gated unnecessarily, along with some forums on Reddit including one dedicated to tackling alcohol abuse. Reddit and X have been contacted for comment.
BBC News
16-07-2025
- Business
- BBC News
How will age verification for porn work and what about your data?
The way people in the UK access websites with pornographic material is about to undergo a significant Online Safety Act says sites must make it harder for under-18s to see explicit material - and major adult websites have confirmed they will introduce advanced age checks by 25 regulator Ofcom estimates 14 million people watch online pornography - and concerns have been raised about the privacy and security implications of them having to undergo more robust identity checks. Age verification companies, who are likely to be employed, say people should be reassured because firms don't retain data, and they don't know what a person has accessed."The only non-hackable database is no database at all," says Iain Corby, of the Age Verification Providers Association. Chelsea Jarvie, a cyber security expert, says society needs to be cautious about "normalising mass identification online".There are a number of ways an adult website may choose to verify a user's age, and Ofcom has recommended seven methods. A website may allow a combination of them to give people choice. Let's look at them. Credit card age checks How it worksYou provide your credit card details and a payment processor checks if the card is are the privacy issues?Age verification firm Verifymy says when you carry out this check on its service, a two-factor authentication check and a mini transaction with no exchange of money takes place, similar to checking into a hotel. "No personal data gets passed on to an adult platform in any way. It is simply a yes or no as to answering a question: is this individual over 18?", said Andy Lulam, Verifymy's chief operating 5RightsFoundation - an online child safety charity - said credit card checks, along with the photo identification and digital identity verification methods, offered high levels of assurance especially when the data was well protected, but "carry significant privacy risks if not designed and managed appropriately". Digital identity services How it worksThese include digital identity wallets, which can securely store and share information which proves your are the privacy issues?Omari Rodney is the chief product engineer for told BBC News once a document such as a passport was examined and verified, all parts of it were then separated and encrypted. The only person who could decrypt it was the individual."We can't see that information unless we get permission from you," he another verification firm, said the user could choose to share a part of their identity - that they were over the age of Jarvie, however, thinks digital wallets - along with open banking - "can feel disproportionate" as a method to prove you are over 18. Email-based age estimation How it worksYou provide your email address, and technology analyses other online services where it has been used - such as banking or utility providers - to estimate your are the privacy issues?Verifymy are one of operators, and it told the BBC its research identified this as the method users would be most comfortable Lulham says the technology checks if an email has been used to interact with a range of websites such as financial said data could be kept for up to 28 days, but added it would often be less, would be encrypted, and no data would be shared with the website being accessed. Facial age estimation How it worksYou show your face via photo or video, and technology analyses it to estimate your are the privacy issues?A verification company would typically check if it is a human, only one person, and not a use an AI model to determine a person's age. While facial age estimation "can be accurate", Ms Jarvie said her research indicated many people would not be comfortable using this method. Mobile network operator age checks How it worksYou give your permission for an age-check service to confirm whether or not your mobile phone number has age filters applied to it. What are the privacy issues?Yoti looks at who the bill payer is, and if it is an adult paying for a child's phone - such as on a family plan. The mobile operator is asked to confirm the age of the person, but would not know which website they intend on company OneID has the user log into their digital ID via their phone number, with the mobile operator confirming if the person is over said pay as you go numbers wouldn't be compatible - users would need to have a phone contract. Open Banking How it worksYou give permission for the age-check service to securely access information from your bank about whether you are over are the privacy issues?OneID uses this method if a user cannot verify they are over the age of 18 via their mobile OneID does not see your transactions, it would see your account number and sort code during its one-off check - but says it does not keep any founder Rob Kotlarz accepts users may be reluctant to show their bank details so they can access an adult website."It is the right thing to protect children," he told BBC News. "We are offering a simpler way of checking someone's age. If it is simple and seamless, why wouldn't you do it to protect the kids?" Photo ID matching How it worksYou upload an image of an ID document that shows your face and age, and an image of yourself at the same time. These are then compared to confirm the document is are the privacy issues?As well as UK documents, Yoti would allow the user to upload some from outside of the Jarvie believes photo ID uploads and credit card checks "feel outdated" and "highly intrusive". Sign up for our Tech Decoded newsletter to follow the world's top tech stories and trends. Outside the UK? Sign up here.
The Guardian
20-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Trial reveals flaws in tech intended to enforce Australian social media ban for under-16s
Technology to check a person's age and ban under 16s from using social media is not 'guaranteed to be effective' and face-scanning tools have given incorrect results, concede the operators of a Australian government trial of the scheme. The tools being trialled – some involving artificial intelligence analysing voices and faces – would be improved through verification of identity documents or connection to digital wallets, those running the scheme have suggested. The trial also found 'concerning evidence' some technology providers were seeking to gather too much personal information. As 'preliminary findings' from the trial of systems meant to underpin the controversial children's social media ban were made public on Friday, the operators insisted age assurance can work and maintain personal privacy. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email The preliminary findings did not detail the types of technology trialled or any data about its results or accuracy. Guardian Australia reported in May the ACCS said it had only trialled facial age estimation technology at that stage. One of the experts involved with the trial admitted there were limitations, and that there will be incorrect results for both children and adults. 'The best-in-class reported accuracy of estimation, until this trial's figures are published, was within one year and one month of the real age on average – so you have to design your approach with that constraint in mind,' Iain Corby, the executive director of the Age Verification Providers Association, told Guardian Australia. Tony Allen, the project director, said most of the programs had an accuracy of 'plus or minus 18 months' regarding age – which he admitted was not 'foolproof' but would be helpful in lowering risk. The Albanese federal government's plan to ban under 16s from social media, rushed through parliament last year, will come into effect in December. The government trial of age assurance systems is critical to the scheme. The legislation does not explicitly say how platforms should enforce the law and the government is assessing more than 50 companies whose technologies could help verify that a user is over 16. The ABC reported on Thursday teenage children in the trial were identified by some of the software as being aged in their 20s and 30s, and that face-scanning technology was only 85% accurate in picking a user's age within an 18-month range. But Allen said the trial's final report would give more detailed data about its findings and the accuracy of the technology tested. The trial is being run by the Age Check Certification Scheme and testing partner KJR. It was due to present a report to government on the trial's progress in June but that has been delayed until the end of July. On Friday, the trial published a two-page summary of 'preliminary findings' and broad reflections before what it said would be a final report of 'hundreds of pages' to the new communications minister, Anika Wells. The summary said a 'plethora of options' were available, with 'careful, critical thinking by providers' on privacy and security concerns. It concluded that 'age assurance can be done in Australia'. The summary praised some approaches that it said handled personal data and privacy well. But it also found what it called 'concerning evidence' that some providers were seeking to collect too much data. 'Some providers were found to be building tools to enable regulators, law enforcement or coroners to retrace the actions taken by individuals to verify their age, which could lead to increased risk of privacy breaches due to unnecessary and disproportionate collection and retention of data,' it said. Sign up to Afternoon Update Our Australian afternoon update breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion In documents shared to schools taking part in the study, program operators said it would trial technologies including 'AI-powered technology such as facial analysis, voice analysis, or analysis of hand movements to estimate a person's age', among other methods such as checking forms of ID. Stakeholders have raised concerns about how children may circumvent the ban by fooling the facial recognition, or getting older siblings or parents to help them. Friday's preliminary findings said various schemes could fit different situations and there was no 'single ubiquitous solution that would suit all use cases' nor any one solution 'guaranteed to be effective in all deployments'. The report also said there were 'opportunities for technological improvement' in the systems trialled, including making it easier to use and lowering risk. This could include 'blind' verification of government documents, via services such as digital wallets. Corby said the trial must 'manage expectations' about effectiveness of age assurance, saying 'the goal should be to stop most underage users, most of the time'. 'You can turn up the effectiveness but that comes at a cost to the majority of adult users, who'd have to prove their age more regularly than they would tolerate,' he said. Corby said the trial was working on risks of children circumventing the systems and that providers were 'already well-placed' to address basic issues such as the use of VPNs and fooling the facial analysis.
The Guardian
07-05-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Google age ID proposal may not suit Australia's under-16 social media ban, expert says
Google is considering allowing people to store and share identification documents such as their passport or driver's licence on their phone, as part of the Australian government's test of technologies to enforce the upcoming social media ban for under 16s. But while the proposed system will likely offer benefits for adults who have access to identification, it will probably be less useful for identifying teenagers without ID documents, raising questions about how helpful the technology would be for the ban. It is seven months until the social media ban for children under 16 is due to come into effect, but how it will work is still being determined. A trial of the technology that could be used for checking user ages on social media apps will be completed in June. The communications minister is also expected to decide which social media platforms it will apply to in the near future. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email Age Check Certification Scheme (ACCS), which is running the trial, did not publicise the progress of the trial during the course of the federal election campaign. However, this week the company released the minutes of a meeting held with stakeholders in March. In the meeting, the Age Verification Providers Association executive director, Iain Corby, told the meeting that Google was 'considering' submitting a proposal to 'allow users to store an age credential in their Google Wallet and share it with apps and websites when needed'. Separately, Google announced at the end of April that it would implement ID passes in Google Wallet in the UK – after already making it available in the US. Under this system, users can take an issued ID such as a passport or licence, hold the information in the wallet, and share their date of birth with a website or app without sharing any other personal information. In a website or app, it would offer a prompt similar to existing payment verification methods to allow users to share this information, and would use the existing authentication methods like passcode, fingerprint or facial recognition associated with phone-based payments. Google also announced in February it was testing a 'machine learning-based age estimation model' to determine whether a user is under or over 18. Google was approached for comment. Apple announced similar technology in February, but the committee noted in its attempts to ask Apple about the technology, that the tech giant 'has been unresponsive, despite multiple outreach attempts'. Dr Alexia Maddox, director of digital education at La Trobe University, said Google's proposal could be a 'fundamental misunderstanding' of the social media ban legislation. skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion 'The bill aims to protect children under 16, but Google Wallet is primarily an adult-oriented service that most children don't have access to,' she said. 'This creates a paradoxical situation where the very users the legislation aims to identify and protect – children – would be unlikely to have the verification tool being proposed.' Maddox warned against 'retrofitting an existing commercial product rather than developing a purpose-built solution for child protection'. 'For age verification to be effective and compliant with the bill's privacy protections, we need approaches that work for all age groups, preserve privacy, destroy data after verification, and don't further concentrate data in the hands of major tech platforms.' Before the social media ban legislation passed in December, Meta and TikTok pushed the government to make Apple and Google, as the device makers, bear responsibility for age assurance, but the federal government decided the onus should rest on the app makers. As part of the trial, more than 1,000 students across five states will participate in testing of at least 25 different age verification or assurance methods, with priority placed on facial age estimation technology. The trial will test some ways children may try to get around the verification, the meeting heard. Following the re-election of the Albanese government, consultation will also continue on which platforms the ban should apply to. Guardian Australia revealed last month the chief executive of YouTube personally lobbied the communications minister, Michelle Rowland, less than 48 hours before she announced YouTube would be exempt from the ban. The news sparked fury from YouTube's rivals, Meta and TikTok, over what was deemed to be a 'sweetheart' deal for the platform. During the election campaign, the federal infrastructure department, which is overseeing the consultation, wrote to Meta stating 'while the former minister for communications proposed to exclude YouTube, no legislative rules have been made giving effect to this'.
