Emerging Technologies and Age Verification: The Challenge of Regulation and Education
Emerging technologies, a complex subject but extremely topical. What emerged during the activities?
These technologies run, sometimes faster than regulation. Therefore, it is increasingly difficult to avert the risk that technology itself becomes a form of regulation and shapes people’s lives instead of rules issued by parliaments and governments. Perhaps, a common perspective as the one achieved during the work of the G7, with the authorities of the 7 major countries aligning for a common goal, may overturn the most foregone conclusion and make rules issued by the States lead the development of technology and not vice versa.
Where do we stand with personal data protection and with age verification?
It is an open game, an undoubtedly and undeniably increasingly difficult game to play. It is not a losing game, it is a game where education, starting with education of the youngest, education of children, will make the difference. The Age Verification is the star of this match, the biggest protagonist of this match. While there are online platforms and services that, provided that the youngest have received an adequate education, represent extraordinary opportunities for them, there are also platforms and services that must simply be considered inaccessible because they are not within reach of children, at least not safely.
So, we have to be able to shift from the statement of principle, the age of those entering a platform, of those using a service must be verified; concretely, this means to find ways to solidly and safely ascertain the age of the user, rather than its identity. Technologically, this is possible today, it is a leap we have to make, and we all agree on the need to do so. Now, it is a matter of moving from words to facts.
Indeed, last month two pedagogues started a petition to request a social media ban on kids under 14 and 16 years of age. Could this technology work in that sense? Yes, it is a neutral technology which may be considered as useful to allow or forbid the use of a certain platform or certain service by the youngest. Today, the age limit declared by most of the social platforms is 13 years old, because 13 years is the limit imposed by the American regulation. Obviously, this limit may be raised or lowered, hopefully on a scientific basis, although it is difficult to identify, let’s put it this way, the age of maturity, the age beyond which social media platforms are more or less risky. But, I mean, it can certainly be done.
Technology remains the same, because if that technology is said to verify that all users are at least 14 years old or that all users are at least 13 years old, the mechanism used is the same; the real issue concerns the compulsion, and how to impose this verification on suppliers of services and platform operators. The rest, namely the reference age and the specific technology to be adopted to achieve the result, come later and are less important.
