United Kingdom · AI Safety · The Register
Kids say they can overtook age checks by drawing on a fake mustache
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It’s been months since the UK government began requiring stronger age checks under the Online Safety Act, and recent research suggests those measures are falling short of keeping kids away from harmful content.
Key facts
- While nearly half of UK kids say it's easy to bypass online age checks (and another 17 percent say it's neither hard nor easy), only 32 percent say they've bypassed them, according to Internet Matters
- A full 46 percent of children even said that age checks were easy to bypass, while 17 percent said that they were difficult to fool
- More specifically, Internet Matters found that a full 17 percent of parents admitted to actively helping their kids evade age checks, while an additional 9 percent simply turned a blind eye to it
- The group surveyed over 1,000 UK children and their parents, and while it did report some positive effects from changes made under the OSA, many children saw age verification as an easy-to-bypass
Summary
Like keeping booze away from teenagers or nudie mags out of the hands of young lads, slapping a big “restricted, 18+” label on parts of the internet hasn't stopped kids testing the limits. The group surveyed over 1,000 UK children and their parents, and while it did report some positive effects from changes made under the OSA, many children saw age verification as an easy-to-bypass hurdle rather than something that kept them genuinely safe. A full 46 percent of children even said that age checks were easy to bypass, while 17 percent said that they were difficult to fool. The report even cites cases of children drawing a mustache on their faces to fool age detection filters.