Law, culture, morals, tech development all cited as reasons for digital age checks

 

Written by: Joel R. McConvey

Released: 29 January 2026

From: Biometricupdate.com

 

Why does age verification matter? The question fueled part of the discussion at this week’s workshop on age assurance hosted by the Federal Trade Commission.

 

A big reason is the law. In his opening remarks for the session, Andrew N. Ferguson, explains how the rise of age assurance technology has collided with the existing Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

 

“Today’s workshop comes on the heels of a series of significant COPPA enforcement actions brought by the FTC over the past year,” Ferguson says. One of these involves Disney. “The FTC alleged that Disney uploaded child directed videos to YouTube without labeling those videos as made for kids.” YouTube, in turn, did not prevent the monetization of the creators’ personal information without parental consent, which COPPA requires.

 

He says the Disney order is “particularly significant because it expressly acknowledged the role of age verification technologies as an emerging and increasingly important means of protecting children online.”

 

“If YouTube implements and Disney uses age verification technology, they can ensure COPPA compliance. Higher costs are no excuse for breaking the law or for relaxing standards for complying with the law.”

 

For Ferguson, the case sets up the broader goal of the FTC workshop: “to discuss and work towards answering the question, how can government agencies and regulators, whether on the federal or state level, facilitate the development and adoption of emerging technologies that expand the protection of American children.” The chairman emphasizes that part of the idea is to show “there need not be tension between the FTC’s mission to protect children and technological innovation.”

 

Age assurance: it’s for everyone

The question of why age assurance laws, tools and practices matter also gets its own panel discussion. Early on, Mark Smith, senior privacy and data policy manager for the Center for Information Policy and Leadership (CIPL), makes a plain but understated point.

 

Businesses covered by age assurance laws “need not verify an individual’s specific age, but simply whether an individual falls above or below a certain threshold, usually 18. That said, the age verification requirement applies to anyone seeking access, which of course means that it applies to both minors and adults.” Put simply, age verification matters because it applies to everyone using online services.

 

Smith also touches on the question of regulatory standardization. “There’s a great deal of regulatory fragmentation with different requirements and different thresholds. So we need to focus on some baseline standards and consistent approaches to age assurance.” Only in talking through the problem will various state governments be able to coordinate efforts and align around best practices.

 

‘Safe does not mean kid-proof’

When asking why age verification matters, certain topics are unavoidable: risk, privacy, and data stewardship. For many, a risk-based approach to age thresholds is the answer, alongside privacy by design. For others, it’s important not to choke innovation.

 

Everyone at the FTC workshop, however, is an adult. Panelist Amelia Vance, president of the Public Interest Privacy Center, takes her time to pivot the discussion to a kid’s perspective – from which age matters a great deal.

 

“The digital world isn’t optional for most kids,” Vance says. “It’s where they access education, health services, entertainment, build relationships, and engage in civic and social activities.” In making the internet everywhere, we have inadvertently pulled our children into it, and cannot simply turn off access.

 

As such, “safe doesn’t mean kid proof.” It can’t, says Vance, when one third of internet users are under the age of 18. That means age assurance is increasingly necessary – but it brings its own risks for adults.

 

Unpacking various laws and legal objections to them, Vance urges policymakers to glean insights from deployments of age assurance technology elsewhere in the world. “Anything we see on age verification, any law or policy needs to make sure that these are the kind of considerations where we can learn from our peers, particularly in other countries that have already done this, to avoid some of these potential privacy issues.”

 

Overarchingly, Vance advocates for age-appropriate experiences online – noting that, once someone is identified as a child, it also matters how you treat them. Smart companies will find ways to create value from that – for themselves, but also for kids. “Age can be used to empower Kids,” Vance says, “not just to take away access.”

 

Age assurance experts consider the cosmic scales of right and wrong

One of the foundational beliefs expressed at the workshop comes from Michael Murray, head of regulatory policy for the United Kingdom Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Murray begins with the assertion that “protecting children isn’t just a legal requirement. It’s the right thing to do.”

 

The question of “the right thing” always haunts online safety discussions, and moral viewpoints and ideologies inevitably come into play. Although he largely sticks to the UK online safety agenda, Murray drops a hard truth that puts a rather large hole in the notion that better parental controls might be the answer: “Children will lie about their age. We all know this and our research shows that half of parents are complicit with these lies to appease their kids.”

 

Not every parent will agree on the right thing, never mind various state bodies in an increasingly politically fractured U.S. The final speaker in the panel is a sound illustration of this: Bethany Soye is a South Dakota State Representative serving as Majority Whip and Vice Chair of the House Judiciary Committee. Soye calls pornography “a public health crisis” and boasts of having passed HB1053, “the nations’ strongest state age verification law for explicit websites.”

 

“South Dakota is a very traditional, conservative state and generally we like to kind of wait until things are certain and then we’ll take action,” Soye says. “But I don’t think this is an area where you can do that with the way that technology is developing. And my personal view is that the state legislature represents the people and it’s your job to put out the policy that you think is morally correct.”

 

The next reason age verification matters? AI chatbots

Amelia Vance highlights the complexity of the issue in a world where technology – and risks for minors – are evolving rapidly.

 

“I think AI companies and chatbots in particular pose a lot of new concerns, and a balance of, you don’t want companies looking at everything that your child might type, but you also want to make sure that your child isn’t engaging in a conversation that ultimately ends in harm. And so thinking very carefully there about when age verification might come in without being too restrictive is going to be vital in figuring all of this out.”