Governments Expand Age-Verification For Online Services

Governments including Australia, European regulators, Brazil and some U.S. states are moving to require aggressive age-checking for social networks, AI chatbots and pornography, after Australia enacted a ban on teen social media accounts in December. Regulators cite AI age-assurance advances: NIST found face-scan error fell from 4.1 years (2014) to 2.5 years (2024), vendors report sub-$1 per-check costs, and Australia says platforms locked about 4.7 million suspected underage accounts.