Assessing Age Assurance Technologies: Effectiveness, Side-Effects, and Acceptance

TL;DR

This paper evaluates various age assurance technologies by analyzing their effectiveness, side effects, and user acceptance, providing a hierarchy of suitable mechanisms to protect minors online.

Contribution

It offers a comprehensive overview and critical assessment of different age assurance approaches and architectures, highlighting their strengths and limitations.

Findings

Effectiveness varies across different AAT methods.

Privacy and bias are significant concerns with current AATs.

Some AATs are more acceptable and effective than others.

Abstract

In this paper, we provide an overview and evaluation of different types of age assurance technologies (AAT). We describe and analyse 1) different approaches to age assurance online (age verification, age estimation, age inference, and parental control and consent), as well as 2) different age assurance architectures (online, offline device-based, offline credential-based), and assess their various combinations with regards to their respective a) effectiveness, b) side effects, and c) acceptance. We then discuss general limitations of AAT's effectiveness stemming from the possibility of circumvention and outline the most important side effects, in particular regarding privacy and anonymity of all users; bias, discrimination, and exclusion; as well as censorship and related concerns. We conclude our analyses by offering some recommendations on which types of AAT are better or less suited to protect minors online. Guiding our assessment is a weighing of effectiveness against side effects, resulting in a graduated hierarchy of acceptable AAT mechanisms.