Under 16 Social Media Ban - Australia

[Whitey]

In short:
Australia's new laws that will forbid children under 16 from using many social media platforms have made headlines around the world.
A story from the Russian state-run news agency TASS pointed out Instagram and Facebook were already banned there.
What's next?
Amendments to the legislation still have to be voted on in the lower house, but that will be a formality.

[abc.net.au...]

[sabuncakis]

The world came under the control of a single state administration. Crypto law at the same time, Airbnb law at the same time. There is similar news in Turkey today. For children under 13, social media has been banned.

[lucy24]

I very much doubt that some powerful hidden cabal is concurrently pulling strings in Turkey and Australia. Why those two?

It is worth finding out how, exactly, they propose to enforce the ban. Even if at the outset it only affects children who don't have the sense to lie convincingly about their age, well, that’s a good start.

[Whitey]

The government says will it rely on some form of age-verification technology to implement the restrictions, and options will be tested in the coming months. The onus will be on the social media platforms to add these processes themselves.

[bbc.com...]

[Dimitri]

The Europe is considering a similar law, but more global since it would include any sized site, meaning that even small forums, or comments would be concerned. Also, in their mind, asking the user to certify he is 13, 16 or 21 is not enough. So it requires another age verification system, that at the same time needs to be compliant with the GDPR.

This is giving me nightmares already.

The only solution I can think of for small publishers, is to drop all our sign in system to exclusively use Google, Facebook, X, Apple, sign up. I a user sign in with his Facebook account, I guess that we can blame Facebook is the user is underage...

[tangor]

All of this is to FORCE user identification (this name is this person at this address in this country, etc.) and put it on the social media companies to figure out how to enforce it (else the government is blamed)...

Anonymity is not to be allowed any where ... eventually.

Coming soon: international Personal ID numbers (papers, registration, social, etc.) One IP address=One person (birth to death)..

[not2easy]

There are currently a number of US businesses requiring users to enter their birth date in a form to even view the site, with or without login. Liquor, tobacco and vape products to name a few. Whether you intend to shop there or not, you don't get in without claiming to be above "X" age. You don't need to prove it, you just need to enter a date older than their cutoff minimum. I don't think that this type of 'verification' would work everywhere. But even this forum requires (when you first sign up) that you certify you are over 13.

From the Terms of Service:

1. You certify that you are 13 years of age or over. All those individuals under 13 years of age will need a full release form from their parents before posting any messages. This is in compliance with the Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act of 2000 (COPPA).

[Whitey]

Biometrics aren't the only non-ID option on the table, but it's not hard to imagine that, given a choice, many people will feel less nervous about a face scan, similar to the one that unlocks their phone, than uploading their licence.

On top of that, there are already signs that social media companies might favour facial scanning — TikTok, Tinder and Meta have all incorporated some version of the technology already, as part of their voluntary efforts in this department.

How will the ban actually work? It remains a mystery

The government's new laws banning children under 16 from having an account with some social media platforms won't take effect for at least 12 months. So what will happen before then?

Neither option, biometrics or government-issued ID, is ideal from a privacy perspective, but leaving privacy to one side for a moment, there's still the question of accuracy.

[abc.net.au...]

[ronin]

Even if at the outset it only affects children who don't have the sense to lie convincingly about their age

asking the user to certify he is 13, 16 or 21 is not enough

you just need to enter a date older than their cutoff minimum. I don't think that this type of 'verification' would work everywhere.

Here's what I don't understand: age verification isn't - I don't think - a particularly tricky problem to solve.

When the OS is setting up for the first time, a responsible adult will be asked to enter the date of birth of the owner of the phone.
That date of birth is recorded as a read-only UNIX timestamp at the OS level. It will be visible in Settings. It will never change unless / until the OS undergoes a factory reset.

Subsequently, when any website which legally requires age verification needs to know the age of the user, there will be an API which enables the website to retrieve the read-only timestamp from the OS.

The outcome will be that websites / apps will never again need to ask the device user's age - only for permission to access the device user's age.

[Dimitri]

The French CNIL published documentations about how age verification, how it should be done, and how to preserve privacy:

Online age verification: balancing privacy and the protection of minors
[cnil.fr...]

Demonstration of a privacy-preserving age verification process
[linc.cnil.fr...]

[lucy24]

a responsible adult

Assuming for the sake of discussion that the person who pays a child’s phone bill is “responsible” in the broader sense of the term.