No More Anonymity? Age Checks Are Coming to the Web.

Richard Errington clicked last month to post a sci-fi movie from his home in England, where YouTube made a postcard of him.

The site said that Mr. Errington, over 50, had to prove that he was old enough to watch the 1974 movie “Space Is the Place” starring jazz musician Sun Ra. It had three options: enter credit card information, upload a photo ID like a passport, or skip the video.

“I decided it wasn’t worth the stress,” he said.

In response to growing pressure from activists, parents and regulators who believe that tech companies are not doing enough to protect children online, businesses and governments around the world are placing large parts of the internet behind stricter digital age controls.

People in Japan must provide proof of age to use the dating app Tinder. Popular game Roblox requires players to upload some form of official ID and a selfie to prove their identity is theirs if they want to access a voice chat feature. Laws in Germany and France require pornography websites to check the age of visitors.

The changes that have accelerated in the last two years may upset one of the Internet’s core features: the ability to remain anonymous. Since the days of dial-up modems and AOL chat rooms, people have been able to roam large swaths of the web without revealing any personal details. Many people have created an online personality completely separate from the offline one.

But the experience of consuming content and communicating online is less and less like an anonymous challenge and more like going to the bank with measures to prove who you are. This month, lawmakers in Washington, outperforming other world capitals in regulating tech companies, called for new rules protecting the young a former Facebook employee said the company knew products hurt some young people. they repeated these calls are on tuesday In a hearing with the executives of YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat’s parent company.

Critics of age controls say that to keep people safe, they can compromise user privacy, limit freedom of expression and harm communities that benefit from online anonymity. Authoritarian governments used child protection as an argument to limit online conversation: China banned websites this summer from ranking celebrities by popularity as part of a larger crackdown on the harmful effects of celebrity culture on teens.

“Are we going to start seeing more age verification? Of course,” said Hany Farid, professor of engineering and computer science. It’s at the University of California, Berkeley, that calls for more child safety measures. “Because there is more pressure, there is now more awareness of how these technologies are harming children.”

But Mr Farid said regulators and companies must act with caution. “We don’t want the solution to be more harmful than the problem,” he said.

Many websites have long required visitors to submit their date of birth so that they can view adult-only content. But visitors could often do so without showing any evidence of their age.

This is no longer sufficient for some editors. New child protection guidelines in the UK say some websites While services collect sensitive user data, they must take additional steps to verify the ages of their users.

An update to the European Union’s video and audio services rules requires sites to protect minors; this may include checking age of users. In response to the change, Google said last year that YouTube, which it owns, will ask some users for identity documents or credit card details before watching adult-only videos. A spokesperson for Google August blog post Here, the company said it is “searching for ways to develop consistent product experiences and user controls for children and youth around the world,” as regulators enforce new rules in different countries.

Facebook is exploring similar options. the company said In the July blog post He was developing programs to look for signs that users were lying about their age, such as noticing that he was receiving messages about his quinceañera from someone claiming to be 21. But when we feel we need more information, we develop a menu of options for someone to prove their age,” Pavni Diwanji, the company’s vice president of youth products, said in the post. Facebook later said that one of the options would include providing identity documents.

Most new age verification efforts require users to submit government-issued ID or credit card information. But other companies are using or considering other options, such as software that estimates a person’s age by scanning a user’s face.

Critics of the controls worry that the requirement will force users to provide sensitive information to websites with limited resources to prevent attacks. Outside companies that offer age checks will also be vulnerable.

“Either way, it’s still an exploitable data trove,” said Daly Barnett, a staff technologist at the online privacy and freedom of speech advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Many companies and governments say they are taking measures to address privacy concerns, such as limits on how long data is retained. British privacy regulator overseeing new child protection code This month, he said websites should only use the most aggressive age checks (like asking for government identification) when the potential risk to a child is equally significant.

When listing which age control method to use, robloxChris Aston Chen, senior product manager at the company, said the game company has shown prototypes to 10 young gamers.

One possible method required players to video call, while another checked government databases. Mr. Chen said that players are turning to using government IDs, an option they trust and think is appropriate. (Roblox’s chief product officer is a board member From The New York Times Company.)

The technology will also make it easier for Roblox to exclude players it has blocked for inappropriate behavior in its voice chat feature. If these players log back in using a new account but try to verify their age using the same official document, they will be locked out.

“I imagine that in the next few years, there will be almost increased comfort and expectation to provide some kind of personal verification on a better platform,” said Mr. Chen.

Some services are resisting the controls. Twitter allows users to disclose their birth dates, but does not require it. If users want to view adult content – ​​nudity is common on the service – they must click on a warning, but do not need to prove they are 18 or older.

“There is a belief at the heart of Twitter that there is great value in public speaking so that people can talk to the world under a pseudonym,” said Nick Pickles, senior director of global public policy strategy at Twitter. A significant amount of personal information must be required before you can use the online services.”

Critics said the change can be particularly troublesome for some people. Ms Barnett of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, for example, said posts about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are more likely to be mistakenly marked as “adult” content, even if they are not overtly sexual.

Automatic facial analysis is often less accurate for female faces or people with darker skin. And critics worry that strict age controls could make life more difficult for people who rely on online anonymity, such as sex workers and political dissidents.

Perhaps no part of the web has more new age check requirements than the pornography sites that are often at the forefront of tech trends. In addition to Germany and France, governments such as Poland, the Philippines, and Canada have considered proposals that require pornography sites to check for ages.

“The internet was created by adults for adults,” said Julie Inman Grant, who heads Australia’s Office of the eSafety Commissioner and develops age control guidelines. “And I think one of the biggest challenges for us is to find a system that proves a child is a child sitting behind a keyboard.”

It is unclear how Internet users will react to the increasingly common age checks.

For months, YouTube announced that it was demanding government IDs due to new regulations to frustrated users on Twitter.

“I pay for YouTube music, but it asks me to upload a copy of my ID to verify my age before it lets me play Nirvana’s ‘blooming’ song.” a user said. The user stated that he first purchased the song on tape “when I was 12, almost 30 years ago”.

YouTube’s customer support account replied, “This is a rule that applies to video sharing platforms in certain countries.”

Mr Errington from the UK said that when he tried to watch “Space Is the Place”, YouTube asked him for a credit card. He doesn’t have it. And he said he was uncomfortable uploading a photo ID.

“I wasn’t ready to give that information away,” he said. “So the Sun Ra video remains a secret.”