Do you sometimes wonder why there is an age verification requirement on social media? Social media platforms invest in age verification tools for a variety of reasons. The main reason is to verify that people visiting these platforms are of the right age.
In short, age verification on social media is there to protect minors from harmful content. It is vital to understand the role it has played, especially in modern times when a lot of children have access to social platforms. This article will explore the role age verification plays.
Let’s get started with everything you should know about age verification on social media.
Understanding Age Verification on Social Media
It will help to have a brief background understanding of what age verification is and how it works. Well, age verification is an online identity verification system that makes it possible to know a person’s age. The process uses AI and computer vision to analyze facial features.
The aim of age verification is to restrict certain digital content from being shown to young users. Social media platforms use age verification solutions because of the varied content they have. It helps them ensure that they show the right content to the right audience.
For instance, a child accessing a social media platform will select “below 18 years” when prompted with the age question. This will enable the social media platform to automatically filter its content. They’ll show the children content that they can learn a thing or two from and hide the content that is inappropriate for children.
What Methods Do Social Media Platforms Use to Verify Age?
You might wonder how social media platforms integrate age verification systems. There are various age verification online solutions that they use to easily identify their users’ age groups. They incorporate these solutions into their systems to perform this function automatically.
This is opposed to the manual age verification process that won’t work for social media platforms. Manual age verification only works well during age-restricted events. They can physically check a person’s age using government-issued documents before admitting them.
It is a whole new ball game when it comes to social media, where there’s zero physical contact. Age verification solutions come in handy because they make it possible to know the age of whoever is accessing content. This helps ensure children are safe on these platforms.
Age Verification Systems Are Evolving
There are various changes happening in the social media world. The age verification game is going a notch higher and becoming more effective than it has ever been. Right now, there are new ways of verifying a social media user’s age, and more are still being developed.
Some of the latest developments in age verification include:
- Video Selfies: You can now verify your age using the content on your profile and a video selfie. Technology tools use the facial features from the selfie to estimate your age. Once they are done estimating your age, the video selfie gets deleted automatically for your safety.
- Social vouching: Using a person’s friends on social media to verify their age. The people who’ll vouch for you need to have attained the minimum age set by the social media platform. You can ask up to three people to vouch for you before you’re allowed access.
Those are some of the new developments happening in the social media world. It has become critical to ensure that social media platforms are safe for everyone. That’s why these platforms are coming up with a wide range of ways to verify a user’s age.
Also, most people lied about their ages initially. This is because the prompt required one to choose either yes or no when asked if they are above 18 years old. However, video selfies and other new ways of verifying age online will curb this and ensure easier identification.
The Role of AI in Online Age Verification
You might have seen us mention artificial intelligence (AI) and wondered what role it plays in online age verification. Well, there are various reasons why online age verification systems leverage AI. One of them is that AI helps simplify online age verification.
It helps get the guesswork out of the way by ensuring that there’s accuracy in the verification process. As we said, some people might lie about their age if you rely on older verification methods. AI uses video selfies to estimate a user’s age by examining their facial features.
AI is set to revolutionize age verification and make it more effective than it’s ever been. It will help speed up processes and ensure social platforms have a higher success rate. In the end, this will boost social media platforms’ compliance with regulatory frameworks.
Ensuring Privacy While Using Age Verification Systems
One of the major concerns social media users have in regards to using age verification is privacy. It is essential to ensure that there’s online privacy, especially when something involves sharing your personal data. This is why privacy is a concern with these solutions.
The good news is that social media platforms invest a lot in user privacy. They ensure that the data you submit for age verification purposes is encrypted and inaccessible to third parties. As said earlier, they auto-delete a user’s video selfie after age verification is done.
In short, you cannot lose your data to cybercriminals after submitting it to a social media platform. The online age verification solutions these platforms use are secure. They know how important your data is and won’t share it with anyone else, but will only use it for verification.
Conclusion
There’s no doubt that the role age verification plays is absolutely crucial. As a parent, you should be careful with what your children see on social media. You don’t want them exposed to nudity and other inappropriate content. That’s why social platforms leverage these solutions.
Veratad and other reliable solutions help ensure young social media users only access content that’s right for them. They also help these platforms meet regulatory compliance since the countries they operate in have different age verification regulations that they must stick with.
