{"id":476194,"date":"2026-04-16T13:18:28","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T13:18:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/savepearlharbor.com\/?p=476194"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T21:00:00","slug":"","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/savepearlharbor.com\/?p=476194","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s my age again?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For three months the Online Safety Act has been gloriously defeating abiding companies. Shall we get prepared for blocking?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been three months since the Online Safety Act\u2019s major duties came into force in the UK, and so far, the only people not criticizing it seem to be the ones who wrote it. Demand for VPNs has skyrocketed<\/a>, while a petition against the law collected nearly half a million signatures in just a few days. Still, there\u2019s no sign of anyone in the government reconsidering it. Xeovo looks into who\u2019s actually benefited, what the costs have been, and whether the promised results are showing up at all.<\/p>\n

How it works<\/h3>\n

The Office of Communications (Ofcom) hasn\u2019t published a definitive list of platforms required to implement age verification. In practice, this covers nearly every platform that could possibly host content \u201cpotentially harmful for children.\u201d That means file-sharing<\/a> services, gaming platforms, marketplaces, social networks \u2014 basically \u201cthe biggest platforms where children spend most time.\u201d<\/a> \u0421hildren, however, use roughly the same<\/a> platforms as adults. The vagueness here is convenient \u2014 it avoids accusations of bias and leaves room to expand the law\u2019s scope whenever needed.<\/p>\n

Yet Ofcom has released<\/a> its list of \u201charmful content\u201d categories, and it reads like a control freak\u2019s wishlist: not only child sexual abuse, firearms, and drugs, but also hate speech, terrorism, unlawful immigration, financial fraud, and \u201cforeign interference offences.\u201d The last one refers to<\/a> search results containing content \u201cnot aligned with UK interests\u201d and \u201clinked to foreign governments.\u201d Hardly the kind of threat children are most likely to encounter.<\/p>\n

Unlike porn sites, social media and hosting platforms don\u2019t primarily deal in \u201charmful\u201d content \u2014 and they already enforce strict moderation. Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube routinely remove anything that could upset large groups of users or, worse, advertisers. Algorithms label certain material as violent or sensitive and either automatically hide it from younger audiences unless age-verified, or require verifying before watching.<\/p>\n

Those algorithms already have a pretty good idea of a user\u2019s age range \u2014 based on interactions, friends, searches, and the date of birth given at registration. \u201cAdult\u201d videos (flagged by frame analysis or self-assigned ratings) are restricted until the user proves they\u2019re not a minor.<\/p>\n

Platforms without their own age-analysis systems must rely on external providers \u2014 and the stricter the risk level of the content, the tougher the verification has to be.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Verification providers<\/h3>\n

Verification platforms use one or several methods suggested<\/a> by Ofcom: open banking, photo ID matching (uploading a photo ID alongside a selfie), facial age estimation, mobile network data, credit card checks, digital ID wallets, or even email-based age estimation.<\/p>\n

These providers return only the verification result to the requesting site. They swear to respect privacy \u2014 keeping no data longer than a few days, encrypting all images and videos, or analyzing them entirely on the user\u2019s device. They have no access to user actions on the verified website.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the promise, anyway.<\/p>\n

Users who want convenience can create accounts directly with a verification provider. This becomes their digital ID, reusable across any partnered site. Naturally, that allows the provider to link those sites together. Matching the same email or phone number across verifications? Technically possible. Whether they do it or not is another question.<\/p>\n

Verification providers of some prominent platforms (except from major social media and a few other platforms, like Amazon and Match Group, which verify users\u2019 age by themselves) are presented in the table below:<\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n

Platform<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Verification provider<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Verification Methods<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Spotify<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Yoti (UK)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Face Scan, ID Verification<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Pornhub<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Internal system and All Pass Trust (Cyprus), including VerifyMyAge Ltd, OneID Ltd, Google LLC<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Credit Card, Email, mobile network operator, open banking, Digital ID<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Reddit<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Persona (USA)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Selfie, ID Verification<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Grindr<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Facetec (USA)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Face Scan, photo ID matching<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

xbox<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Yoti<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Selfie, ID Verification, Mobile Provider, Credit Card Check<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Bluesky<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Kid Web Services (KWS)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Face Scan, ID verification, payment card<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Discord<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

k-ID (Singapore)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Face Scan, ID verification<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Nexus<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

k-ID<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Face Scan, ID verification<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Roblox<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Persona<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

photo ID matching<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Twitch<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

k-ID<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Face Scan<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Among the most common methods are face scans and ID checks \u2014 a compromise between accuracy and data breach risk. But either way, verification isn\u2019t cheap. Yoti, one of the biggest players, charged<\/a> between $0.17 and $0.42 per verification in mid-April to mid-May, depending on the method used.<\/p>\n

The costs<\/h3>\n

Platforms that refuse to comply face fines of up to<\/a> \u00a318 million or 10% of global revenue \u2014 whichever is higher. So far, Ofcom has flagged 69<\/a> violators. One of them is 4chan<\/a>, fined \u00a320 million plus \u00a3100 per day until compliance. Still, that\u2019s less than Google\u2019s fines in Russia \u2014 so for many platforms, it\u2019s simply the cost of doing business until the political weather changes and those astronomical penalties are removed. Unless, of course, Ofcom decides to start blocking access entirely.<\/p>\n

Rebellion here isn\u2019t about principle so much as practicality. Most non-compliant platforms just can\u2019t afford it. Take 4chan again: its annual revenue is estimated at less than $12.2 million, with roughly 7%<\/a> of its global traffic \u2014 about 180,000 monthly users \u2014 coming from the UK. If age verification causes 90%<\/a> of users to drop off, there\u2019s literally no economic reason to implement it.<\/p>\n

And that rejection rate isn\u2019t likely to shrink anytime soon, given the privacy concerns. A recent cyberattack<\/a> on Discord\u2019s age-verification provider leaked ID photos from a third of its users \u2014 not exactly reassuring. Add in the fact that some verification providers track<\/a> user activity or have ties to intelligence agencies, and public trust sinks even lower.<\/p>\n

Sure, no one wants kids addicted to porn. No one wants them stumbling into \u201cforeign interference offences\u201d or cringey AI slop either. But can we guarantee they won\u2019t just turn to one of the 3,000<\/a> clone sites pirating content from the originals \u2014 the ones now hidden behind age gates? No, we can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Can we guarantee they won\u2019t dive deeper into the darker corners of the internet to avoid those gates \u2014 and find something far worse than porn? Also no. Not to mention false positives from face-scanning errors or kids simply asking their older siblings or schoolmates to pass the check for them.<\/p>\n

So far, so\u2026not good<\/h3>\n