Ofcom proposes photo ID, bank checks and face scans to keep under-16s off social media, and ADULTS may face checks
Ofcom has identified four age-verification methods — including facial age estimation and bank checks — to keep under-16s off social media from March.
Ofcom has set out four ways social media platforms could verify that users are 16 or older, as the UK prepares to bar under-16s from such services from next March. The regulator identifies photo ID matching, digital ID services, banking-based checks and facial age estimation as its most reliable tools, though all four still require government approval. Around 150,000 sixteen and seventeen-year-olds hold neither a passport nor a driving licence, making verification for that group particularly difficult.
Ofcom CEO Dame Melanie Dawes warned that settling on a single method — as other countries had — simply 'didn't work.'
Australia has already enacted a comparable under-16s ban, yet children there have widely circumvented it — the UK says its own approach will be harder to get around.
