Age verification

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See also: Forced identification and De-anonymization

Age Verification (AV), also referred to as Age Affirmation (AA) and Age gating, is the process in where a business requires some form of identification to verify your age. This is usually done for more explicit or mature content. This practice has been widely spreading since the UK's Online Safety Act (OSA) has passed; requiring all individuals to verify themselves before accessing mature content. Ways of checking age include, but are not limited to: checking for a valid credit card, facial age estimation tools, government-issued ID, biometric data, account history behavior, and more.

As of December 2025, 25 US States require websites with mature content to verify age.

How it works

When accessing a platform or website that may contain content not suitable for all audiences may force you to register for the platform along with verifying your age by one of the methods mentioned previously. Sites that likely don't use any form of account system will probably have a popup instead requiring you to verify your age before even serving the content you were trying to access.

New legislation now mandates operating systems (OS) to block the user until they verify their age. This is done "for convenience" so that apps and websites don't individually prompt the user, instead those apps/websites can just query the platform (e.g. OS, web-browser, etc...) without the user noticing.

Why is this a problem?

The Online Safety Act is already exerting extraterritorial control through the age‑verification and validation changes it prompts, which are being implemented in the U.S. even though those companies customer bases are not at all subject to UK law, even Europeans that are also not under UK law are affected. This stems from the Act’s vague, overly broad language requiring companies to comply whenever users are located in the UK. Because the law effectively ignores national borders, non‑UK companies face only two options: geo‑block affected content for UK users or apply the same verification measures globally.

Geo‑blocking would severely disrupt services and business relationships that where already in place with UK customers before the Online Safety Act, so many companies choose to implement the changes for all users resulting in practical overreach beyond the UK. A reason for this is Ofcoms statutory powers to require platforms to use “accredited technology” to detect illegal content. As such systems would have to be implemented onto all the content this again would be an overreach of their precieved authorities. Companys that do not comply are already beeing fined for this.

Even if the UK Government has “paused” its demand for implementing “accredited technologys” there is no practical way to meet the vague requirement set out by Ofcom in the Online Safety Act. The proposal ignores that smaller companies would likely be forced to close under the financial burden of compliance, producing a sterilized market with reduced competition only firms with deep pockets can comply. That still does not prevent Ofcom from fining companies that fail to comply.

Examples:

Webpage 4chan

AVS GROUP LIMITED

The provider of Im.ge

Youngtek Solutions Ltd

Customer Profiling

Having companies easily able to identify you means they can track you more efficiently and sell that shared profile to other companies such as ad agencies that then start targeting you specifically.

Government overreach

Governments can also more easily track online movements and find out who you are. Saying something that may go against their own agenda may end up with a police raid, heavy interrogation, and prison time.

Censorship

Certain topics, such as adult content, politics, and LGBT+ topics, will likely be unfairly censored by the governing body or company that has a say on what platform has the potential to be inappropriate for minors or other age groups.

Platforms that host this type of content may also be more proactive in deleting/hiding posts that may get them in trouble or fined by laws or policies by local governments, leading to a more censored internet where opinions are streamlined to fit a set narrative or outlook.

Increased inequality and denial of service

Some stores, such as grocery stores, prohibit young people from viewing their web sites or using loyalty cards, which provide discounts and digital coupons. Age verification means that young people and families where the young person does the shopping pay more for essentials like food. Those who do not have ID, or do not chose to use it (for instance, those who fear domestic violence, or are members of a group subject to persecution) may also be locked out or have to pay more.

Storage of private and biometric Information by age verification service providers

A study commissioned by the Australian government found that age verification service providers accumulate a concerning amount of personal information, sometimes even biometric in nature, even when that was not necessary to provide the age verification service.

Driving users towards smaller and completely unregulated offerings

Big platforms can be regulated and forced to comply with applicable laws since they need to have infrastructure such as servers in all major markets. Only these will be affected by the age restriction requirement.

However, users who do not wish to compromise their privacy or who are not of age will then go looking towards smaller niche platforms, often in other regions not affected by the regulation or the darknet. With these offerings, there is little to no leverage with regards to removal of illegal content. Increased exposure to illegal content can then lead to both a strengthening of illegal content providers and significantly increased danger to minors, who may not yet be able to differentiate between legal and illegal content as well as an adult.

Increased damage from data breaches

Platforms which implement age checks that require sensitive information such as a government-issued ID will likely be more of a target for cyber criminals. As more platforms comply with the age checks, it becomes more likely that a data breach on at least one of these platforms can reveal extremely sensitive information. In the case of a data breach, it can be catastrophic if users' sensitive information were exposed, which can likely result in identity theft.

Platforms already experience major losses and consumer distrust from data breaches that reveal information less sensitive than government-issued IDs or biometric data. A data breach involving information this sensitive will seriously damage a business, and the users even more so. As stated previously, users who foresee these privacy risks will turn away from platforms which implement the policy, and towards niche platforms.

Inaccuracy

Researches about age verification software that estimates age via face scans are inaccurate, identifying children as adults or vice versa. These inaccurate estimations might lead to have to use more privacy-invasive methods like submitting a picture of a personal ID. ^{[citation needed]}

Examples

• YouTube's age verification and account estimation algorithm.

• Spotify's Age affirmation for MA rated songs and content.

• Discord's age verification for accounts determining what eligible servers are available.

• Roblox's age verification and account estimation algorithm for talking with users of similar age.

External links

• Ageless Linux — Distro Compliance Tracker
• GitHub BryanLunduke - List Tracking Operating Systems Not Implementing Age Verification
• EFF explains how OS-level age-verification is unconstitutional

See also

• Chat Control