Adults now would remember their childhood and teenage lives, one involving less technology until the late ’80s and throughout the ’90s, but even then life did not have advancements as we do in today’s day and age. With every modern family home having access to the internet, young parents find it hard to raise their children the same way that they were since 93% of children and teenagers make use of devices and the internet.
It may not seem all too bad, kids today are much smarter than those of the previous generation. But they might not be as productive since these device-using kids form bad habits such as laziness and leaving out important things like schoolwork to binge-watch videos. This, sadly, is not the bigger uglier picture.
The internet, being the enormous gateway that it is, allows for youngsters to come across age-restricted content that they ultimately engage with. The number is staggering of minors doing things such as gambling online or making purchases of illegal items such as alcohol and tobacco. It also leaves them exposed to dangerous people on the internet such as pedophiles and thieves who particularly target them on social media and gaming platforms due to their naivety.
Not only does this have bad effects on these young users such as early age mental and physical illnesses, businesses such as gambling sites also suffer losses in fines for not taking up proper security measures due to child protection laws. Many places on the internet where people below the legal age limit are likely to be such as marketplaces, social media sites, streaming, and gaming apps need to conduct effective identity verification. Luckily, thanks to advancements in security technology, online age verification solutions exist to ensure users have their age verified to meet a site’s legal requirement. Such solutions help businesses curb age-related issues and follow Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations and compliances.
How is age verification performed?
Age verification solutions make it seamless and foolproof to verify a user’s age. The software uses the user’s ID document such as their driving license, passport, or ID card to confirm the user’s age with the date of birth that they have provided. Using AI and OCR, the document’s information is extracted and crossmatched. Further checks are done to ensure the document’s genuineness such as looking for imperfections that prove fakeness and forgery.
Additionally, scanning the user’s face to match the provided document is done to further prove their identity. In the mere possibility that the underaged user or an identity thief tries to fool the system using a photo or mask, the AI utilizes liveness and depth detection to identify a real face.
Final word
The utilization of online age verification is a proper step forward towards making the internet a risk-free space where the young can access knowledge and entertainment. It helps lower the large number of cases where kids use their parent’s bank information to make purchases without their knowledge. This especially includes in-game stores where kids often are attracted to buy add-ons and character cosmetics. Cybercriminals target these particular users with fake websites where they would naively enter sensitive information for it to be stolen and misused.
Checking their age before signing up also helps keeps them away from toxic environments such as some forums and social media pages where abusive behavior could have lasting bad effects on them. These negative effects become the cause for grave actions such as mass school shootings and other shocking crimes. Preventing dangers before they happen is crucial especially if it involves those young at heart.
