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The Guardian
14 hours ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Trial reveals flaws in tech intended to enforce Australian social media ban for under-16s
Technology to check a person's age and ban under 16s from using social media is not 'guaranteed to be effective' and face-scanning tools have given incorrect results, concede the operators of a Australian government trial of the scheme. The tools being trialled – some involving artificial intelligence analysing voices and faces – would be improved through verification of identity documents or connection to digital wallets, those running the scheme have suggested. The trial also found 'concerning evidence' some technology providers were seeking to gather too much personal information. As 'preliminary findings' from the trial of systems meant to underpin the controversial children's social media ban were made public on Friday, the operators insisted age assurance can work and maintain personal privacy. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email The preliminary findings did not detail the types of technology trialled or any data about its results or accuracy. Guardian Australia reported in May the ACCS said it had only trialled facial age estimation technology at that stage. One of the experts involved with the trial admitted there were limitations, and that there will be incorrect results for both children and adults. 'The best-in-class reported accuracy of estimation, until this trial's figures are published, was within one year and one month of the real age on average – so you have to design your approach with that constraint in mind,' Iain Corby, the executive director of the Age Verification Providers Association, told Guardian Australia. Tony Allen, the project director, said most of the programs had an accuracy of 'plus or minus 18 months' regarding age – which he admitted was not 'foolproof' but would be helpful in lowering risk. The Albanese federal government's plan to ban under 16s from social media, rushed through parliament last year, will come into effect in December. The government trial of age assurance systems is critical to the scheme. The legislation does not explicitly say how platforms should enforce the law and the government is assessing more than 50 companies whose technologies could help verify that a user is over 16. The ABC reported on Thursday teenage children in the trial were identified by some of the software as being aged in their 20s and 30s, and that face-scanning technology was only 85% accurate in picking a user's age within an 18-month range. But Allen said the trial's final report would give more detailed data about its findings and the accuracy of the technology tested. The trial is being run by the Age Check Certification Scheme and testing partner KJR. It was due to present a report to government on the trial's progress in June but that has been delayed until the end of July. On Friday, the trial published a two-page summary of 'preliminary findings' and broad reflections before what it said would be a final report of 'hundreds of pages' to the new communications minister, Anika Wells. The summary said a 'plethora of options' were available, with 'careful, critical thinking by providers' on privacy and security concerns. It concluded that 'age assurance can be done in Australia'. The summary praised some approaches that it said handled personal data and privacy well. But it also found what it called 'concerning evidence' that some providers were seeking to collect too much data. 'Some providers were found to be building tools to enable regulators, law enforcement or coroners to retrace the actions taken by individuals to verify their age, which could lead to increased risk of privacy breaches due to unnecessary and disproportionate collection and retention of data,' it said. Sign up to Afternoon Update Our Australian afternoon update breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion In documents shared to schools taking part in the study, program operators said it would trial technologies including 'AI-powered technology such as facial analysis, voice analysis, or analysis of hand movements to estimate a person's age', among other methods such as checking forms of ID. Stakeholders have raised concerns about how children may circumvent the ban by fooling the facial recognition, or getting older siblings or parents to help them. Friday's preliminary findings said various schemes could fit different situations and there was no 'single ubiquitous solution that would suit all use cases' nor any one solution 'guaranteed to be effective in all deployments'. The report also said there were 'opportunities for technological improvement' in the systems trialled, including making it easier to use and lowering risk. This could include 'blind' verification of government documents, via services such as digital wallets. Corby said the trial must 'manage expectations' about effectiveness of age assurance, saying 'the goal should be to stop most underage users, most of the time'. 'You can turn up the effectiveness but that comes at a cost to the majority of adult users, who'd have to prove their age more regularly than they would tolerate,' he said. Corby said the trial was working on risks of children circumventing the systems and that providers were 'already well-placed' to address basic issues such as the use of VPNs and fooling the facial analysis.
The Guardian
07-05-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Google age ID proposal may not suit Australia's under-16 social media ban, expert says
Google is considering allowing people to store and share identification documents such as their passport or driver's licence on their phone, as part of the Australian government's test of technologies to enforce the upcoming social media ban for under 16s. But while the proposed system will likely offer benefits for adults who have access to identification, it will probably be less useful for identifying teenagers without ID documents, raising questions about how helpful the technology would be for the ban. It is seven months until the social media ban for children under 16 is due to come into effect, but how it will work is still being determined. A trial of the technology that could be used for checking user ages on social media apps will be completed in June. The communications minister is also expected to decide which social media platforms it will apply to in the near future. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email Age Check Certification Scheme (ACCS), which is running the trial, did not publicise the progress of the trial during the course of the federal election campaign. However, this week the company released the minutes of a meeting held with stakeholders in March. In the meeting, the Age Verification Providers Association executive director, Iain Corby, told the meeting that Google was 'considering' submitting a proposal to 'allow users to store an age credential in their Google Wallet and share it with apps and websites when needed'. Separately, Google announced at the end of April that it would implement ID passes in Google Wallet in the UK – after already making it available in the US. Under this system, users can take an issued ID such as a passport or licence, hold the information in the wallet, and share their date of birth with a website or app without sharing any other personal information. In a website or app, it would offer a prompt similar to existing payment verification methods to allow users to share this information, and would use the existing authentication methods like passcode, fingerprint or facial recognition associated with phone-based payments. Google also announced in February it was testing a 'machine learning-based age estimation model' to determine whether a user is under or over 18. Google was approached for comment. Apple announced similar technology in February, but the committee noted in its attempts to ask Apple about the technology, that the tech giant 'has been unresponsive, despite multiple outreach attempts'. Dr Alexia Maddox, director of digital education at La Trobe University, said Google's proposal could be a 'fundamental misunderstanding' of the social media ban legislation. skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion 'The bill aims to protect children under 16, but Google Wallet is primarily an adult-oriented service that most children don't have access to,' she said. 'This creates a paradoxical situation where the very users the legislation aims to identify and protect – children – would be unlikely to have the verification tool being proposed.' Maddox warned against 'retrofitting an existing commercial product rather than developing a purpose-built solution for child protection'. 'For age verification to be effective and compliant with the bill's privacy protections, we need approaches that work for all age groups, preserve privacy, destroy data after verification, and don't further concentrate data in the hands of major tech platforms.' Before the social media ban legislation passed in December, Meta and TikTok pushed the government to make Apple and Google, as the device makers, bear responsibility for age assurance, but the federal government decided the onus should rest on the app makers. As part of the trial, more than 1,000 students across five states will participate in testing of at least 25 different age verification or assurance methods, with priority placed on facial age estimation technology. The trial will test some ways children may try to get around the verification, the meeting heard. Following the re-election of the Albanese government, consultation will also continue on which platforms the ban should apply to. Guardian Australia revealed last month the chief executive of YouTube personally lobbied the communications minister, Michelle Rowland, less than 48 hours before she announced YouTube would be exempt from the ban. The news sparked fury from YouTube's rivals, Meta and TikTok, over what was deemed to be a 'sweetheart' deal for the platform. During the election campaign, the federal infrastructure department, which is overseeing the consultation, wrote to Meta stating 'while the former minister for communications proposed to exclude YouTube, no legislative rules have been made giving effect to this'.
