The Hidden Human Rights Costs of Mandatory Age Assurance for Social Media
By
Emma Day, Sabine Witting
Summary
The article argues that as countries like the UK, Australia, and others impose age restrictions on social media for children under 16, the human rights and children's rights implications of mandatory age assurance systems are being overlooked. The authors, Emma Day and Sabine Witting, contend that age assurance technologies — including age estimation, verification, and inference — raise significant privacy, data protection, and discrimination concerns. They note that in the absence of proactive regulatory enforcement, technical standards bodies have become the de facto regulators, yet these processes lack human rights expertise. The article calls for human rights experts to engage directly in standards development to ensure age assurance systems respect children's rights to privacy, participation, and non-discrimination under international frameworks like the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Source
bskyThe Hidden Human Rights Costs of Mandatory Age Assurance for Social Mediatechpolicy.pressKey quotes
· 4 pulledWhat is currently missing from the discussion is the hidden children's rights and human rights cost of mandatory age assurance, the necessary enforcement mechanism.
In the absence of proactive regulatory enforcement, technical standards have become more important for age assurance vendors.
The current standards development processes lack the necessary human rights expertise to ensure that age assurance systems are designed and implemented in a way that respects children's rights.
Age assurance technologies — including age estimation, verification, and inference — raise significant privacy, data protection, and discrimination concerns.
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