Embed Notice

https://spectator.com/article/a-social-media-ban-for-kids-puts-all-our-privacy-at-risk/

It is not hard to see that for all the good intentions, age-based restrictions to social media amount to a Trojan horse for a de facto mandatory digital ID system. Biometric face scans, often falsely presented as a privacy-safe method of age verification, will fail for millions of people: no algorithm can tell the difference between a 16-year-old on the day of their birthday and the day before. Many more users – adults with facial disabilities, young-looking women, or anyone who isn’t white – will face a significantly higher risk of being prompted to upload an ID document because the algorithm cannot accurately verify their age. And so, a biased and inaccurate algorithm will be the arbiter of who does – and who does not – need to upload their ID to unlock huge swathes of the internet.