Any parent knows that more children are accessing the internet, more regularly and in more ways, and younger than ever before; this is a trend which is only likely to continue. As education and youth health providers turn to the web to offer services seen by society as positive, those which pedal less wholesome fayre are waiting to reap the rewards.

Illegal vs. Harmful

As well as being a living nightmare for most parents, the likelihood of children accidentally or deliberately accessing websites, goods and services which could harm them is something governments are starting to take seriously. What parents and governments want is some form of age verification which blocks underage users from accessing illegal or harmful sites.

Illegal is, in some ways, easier to police. The fact is that it is illegal to sell or offer a range of goods and services to anyone under a certain age; in this case, websites which do face a hefty fine, or possible closure.

Harmful, meanwhile, is less straightforward. Businesses which sell fireworks, for example, know that their products can harm children; however, those which offer certain services can at least claim a lack of evidence. Any harm done to minors from viewing unsuitable images is much harder to prove than a burn from a firework.

Interested parties

How seriously online businesses take age verification, sadly, often depends on their own self-interest. It is simply not in the interests of, say, a dating site to make every visitor verify their age; this interrupts the flow of registration, and will result in a drastically reduced conversion rate. At the end of the day, this is seen as being bad for business.

One way around this is a badge system, whereby a user looking for a date will – at least in theory – prefer someone with an age-verification badge than someone without. This level of light-touch internet policing is something that regulatory authorities like the UK’s Ofcom are looking at. The dangers of pushback by internet providers must be weighed against the likelihood of minors suffering harm at the hands of adults because of half-hearted age verification processes.

Non-anonymous age verification

Even in age restricted areas of the market, not all businesses take age verification seriously. A recent survey showed that only about half of these employed robust methods; the other half relied on anonymous verification, including self-assessment and verification by scanned documents.

A serious age verification system is one which requires the user to give up some of their anonymity. This should really involve a photograph, which in today’s world could just mean a selfie. The image of someone’s face popping up as part of an application or registration is still one of the safest means of age verification.

Although some will say that this goes against the spirit of the internet, parents and authorities such as Ofcom have more pressing concerns to worry about. In an increasingly web-reliant world, protecting minors from harm still falls to responsible adults; robust age verification is one tool to help in this ongoing struggle.