Age verification online? Already at the operating system level

The issue of verifying the age of Internet users is one of the hottest topics in recent months. More and more countries are deciding, among other things, to limit access to social media. Australia, among others, has already decided to take such a step. Poland also has such plans.

However, how to verify age remains a controversial issue. Some say that it is necessary to present a document, others do it, for example, by scanning the face and thus determining the user’s age. However, in each case one thing is common – the responsibility lies with the websites. Mistakes can mean penalties for them.

Another idea Two senators from Colorado came up with yet another idea. The bill they presented, SB26-051, assumes that information about the user’s age is to be recorded at the operating system level. This means that Windows, Android, iOS or Linux would have to verify how many years the person using them has already lived.

Importantly, the signal transmitted by the systems is to be anonymized. This means that application developers would only receive a signal whether the user is a child, teenager or adult. They wouldn’t know his details or even his exact date of birth.