Meta is coming out as a supporter of age verification, and the proposal the giant is putting forward exposes and sums up many of the points critics have been consistently making.
A blog post by Meta VP and Global Head of Safety Antigone Davis proposes to implement age verification at the operating system/app stores level.
Although the narrative around child safety and difficulties of parenting “in the digital age” dominates the article, “the meat of it” are the implications that this approach brings with it: namely, it creates a situation where, down the line, people would be forced to link real-world identity to their phone’s operating system (OS).
And everything they do using the phone is exposed to that OS.
Related: The 2024 Digital ID and Online Age Verification Agenda
Davis goes into how the EU (notably via the Digital Services Act) is trying to resolve the problem of age verification, but doesn’t think any existing methods are good enough; instead, new regulation is needed, the Meta exec argues – and that would be the one that “applies to all apps.”
It means incorporating “the point of approval” into the OS or app stores. The parents would be notified when their child downloads an app, which would allow them to approve it. (The idea seems to be that if a jurisdiction has laws that prohibit a certain category of minors from using certain apps – it would be the parents’ job to “enforce” that.)
It might not sound like a very reliable way to ensure compliance, but it would achieve some goals, in the grand scheme of things, quite separate from what the “think of the children” argument seeks to present as the reason for the age verification push.
Meta is trying to lead the way here in introducing “industry standards” – the proposal looks to embed the technology into different operating systems and app stores.
When it comes to what a social media company should consider age-appropriate content, Meta is again urging common “standards” that would be observed by everyone.
And, some countries already require that parents provide government-issued ID to app stores in order for their children to use a phone and set up accounts. Meta wants the EU to “mandate by a legislative framework that applies across all member states and for all apps teens use.”
