On July 25, the UK became one of the first countries to widely implement age verification. Online safety laws require sites that host pornography and other content deemed “harmful,” including Reddit, Discord, Grindr, X and Bluesky, to verify that users are 18 or older. Initial results were confusing. Many services complied, but some left the country rather than take the risk and cost. Users have tricked verification tools or used VPNs to bypass them. This is just a taste of the problems many other countries could face as they roll out their own systems, a situation privacy and security experts have long warned about, but to little avail.
Following years of political efforts to make the internet safer for children, age verification is starting to permeate online spaces around the world. Lawmakers in the US, Europe, Australia, and elsewhere have all passed age-restriction regulations, and platforms are starting to comply. Verification methods are similar to those in the UK. Platforms typically ask users to enter a payment card, upload a government-issued ID, take a selfie, or allow the platform to use data (such as account creation date and user associations) to “guess” their age. Most rely on third-party services. Bluesky uses the Kids web service owned by Epic Games. Reddit is working with Persona. Discord has partnered with k-ID.
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