Safer Internet Day - February 10

Safer Internet Day is February 10.

I spent 2002–2020 working in online child safety, even spearheading the award-winning 'Restricted to Adult' (RTA) website label almost 20 years ago (rtalabel.org). I held a press conference about it in Feb 2013 at the National Press Club in DC (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhCa211k73Y).

I've been out of the Age Verification (AV) tech space for over six "Internet years" (roughly 42 real-time years in tech terms!). So, I asked my former colleague Tim Henning, Executive Director of the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection (asacp.org), for his perspective on the current state of AV and appreciated his educated and current technology response.

“Device based Age Verification is not a new concept and is something ASACP has supported in the past and continues to. ICMEC (International Center for Missing and Exploited Children) proposed this in early 2025 with their Digital Age Assurance Act, a model for AV legislation. It can solve many issues with current ID and biometric approaches depending on the method(s) used. Most notably end user privacy, interoperability, and lower friction.

It has not, however, been something policymakers and regulators have embraced to date. There are several reasons for this. With respect to AgeKey it still requires end users to AV with an ID or biometric. Currently about 60% of end users are not comfortable with ID based solutions or showing their face for age estimation. They do not trust that this is private. Even though it can be proven to be private it simply is not their perception currently. It is a step in the right direction, however, and hopefully will be something that gains traction.

There are new technologies and approaches coming into the space that require no ID or biometrics which are completely private. ASACP recently partnered with one such AV solution called BorderAge. This solution is based on 30 years of medical research on how the human nervous system ages very precisely throughout our lives and is 99% accurate across all age groups and ethnicities. It only requires the end user to perform a few hand gestures which only takes a few seconds to complete. These are the types of approaches that I feel will make a huge difference in age assurance moving forward.”

Please be responsible stewarts and protect the children!