Report from Reuters
In Brief – TikTok will start rolling out a new technology-based age-estimation regime across Europe in the coming weeks with the goal of more effectively identifying and removing accounts belonging to children under 13. The new system follows a year-long pilot in Britain that led to the company removing thousands of accounts of underage users. The plan is to analyze profile information, posted videos and behavioral signals to predict whether an account may be underage. TikTok says that accounts flagged by the technology tools will be reviewed by specialist moderators rather than automatically banned. For appeals against bans, the company says it will use facial-age estimation from verification provider Yoti, along with credit-card checks and government-issued identification. TikTok said the new technology was built specifically for Europe to comply with the region’s regulatory requirements, including working with Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, the company’s lead EU privacy regulator, while developing the system.
Context – Online age limits and checks are the march. is the highest profile example. Around five million accounts have been closed, and there are many stories of workarounds, including with parental backing. Officials in many jurisdictions are interested in some form of a social media age threshold, including the EU and UK, and many US states have legislated age-based social media rules, which could eventually require age verification. While social media captures the most attention, meaning systems aimed at identifying teens under 15 or 16, porn is an online age verification staple and is focused on adults. Age checking porn sites was the first use case in France, the US, and is a core part of the current UK regime. In Australia, age checks are now being done by search engines because search can lead to porn. The EU might eventually adopt social media thresholds beyond 13, but it’s worth noting that face scans are far less reliable for young teens than for adults, and young teens generally don’t have government IDs or credit cards.