- by Pitar Raitu
- The Guardian
- Issue #2189
At first glance, age verification looks like a good idea, a no-brainer. There’s a lot of material on the internet we don’t want young people to see. There is pornography, violence, grooming. Age verification laws, also known as ‘age-gating’ will fix these problems, won’t they?
There’s definitely a lot of harmful stuff on the internet, but age verification may not be the simple fix people hope for.
For one thing, there are privacy issues. Queensland University of Technology professor of digital communication Daniel Angus, describes the laws as part of “a fundamental erosion of the anonymous internet.” Other experts have raised the question of what happens to the information – identity, age – and other details. Angus points out that there has been a vast increase in the amount of private data that commercial platforms.
RMIT University associate dean of technology Dana McKay agrees with the need for the bans, but agrees that there are issues with the safety of the data. If you show your drivers license in order to buy alcohol, you might flash your drivers’ license at the staff, but the store doesn’t keep the information forever. With digital data validation, that’s exactly what they can do, very easily. The information can be sold.
McKay says that the platforms that use age-gating can easily throw the information away, but questions whether that’s what will happen.
A wider issue is that having age-gating as a routine procedure normalises surveillance for adults.
There’s a possibility that the big tech companies support age-gating laws because it shields them from the public backlash they’d get otherwise. When Discord asked for IDs from users, it copped a major public backlash.
A simpler concern is that age-based bans are simply not working. Seven out of ten parents whose children had social media prior to the ban on under-16s have said that their children are still on those platforms. Esafety, the government’s own authority in these matters, has reported no change in cyberbullying or image-based abuse reports.
Harder to quantify, but a real concern, is that an age-based ban could cut kids off from online material that really helps them. The internet and social media can be useful sources of information and support.
Government could do different things. It could ban dangerous features of platforms, such as endless scrolling for everyone. There are places where this sort of regulation is happening.
It could also invest heavily in education which would reach those 7 out of 10 children evading the ban now.
As Crikey’s Cam Wilson has said, “Australia pursued a big, bold ban instead of other reforms. The Albanese government sold it to the world and used it to burnish its reputation for helping kids and holding big tech accountable. Now, as the early results come in, it doesn’t look like it’s successfully doing either.”
