AI Spots Underage Social Media Users at a Glance
In brief:
Technology that can detect whether a user is under age could soon be in use by social media platforms after a British startup unveiled a tool that works through looks alone. Yoti, a London-based company, said that it had become the first to provide age-estimation technology that uses camera and AI to detect if a child is under 13, which is the required age for apps such as Instagram and TikTok. It claims to have an accuracy for those aged between 13 and 24 of 1.5 years. Businesses using the software — which previously only worked on adults — can set an age threshold for the AI to compare each user to. The system is already being employed in supermarkets in Estonia for age verification at automated checkouts, and by the German version of the adult entertainment platform Fan Centro — and has already made more than 550 million age checks.
Why this is important:
Yoti’s image technology may be increasingly appealing as Big Tech and internet services have faced increasing scrutiny over how children use their products. However, privacy advocates say automatically analysing people’s faces normalises surveillance, is largely unregulated, and has the potential to show bias.