Age Verification Is Sweeping Gaming. Is It Ready for the Age of AI Fakes?
1 min read
Summary
Wikimedia, Meetup and Discord have all suffered recent failures of their age verification processes in the UK, where there are strict laws governing online child safety.
Wireless has reported that users are finding increasingly creative ways to circumvent the checks, which often require ID to be provided as proof of age, including the use of video game avatars and AI-generated faces.
In one incident that went viral, a UK user used Norman Reedus, the actor who plays the lead character in the game Death Stranding, to successfully navigate the check.
Age verification is increasingly being seen as an important tool to protect children online and prevent them from accessing harmful content, but its critics say the current system is flawed and cumbersome.
Several online platforms, including Google and Roblox, now use AI to estimate users’ ages, but this is also proving to be unreliable.
