Age verification proposals for social media, app stores, and devices have proliferated across the nation at the federal and state level. One common theme is age-gating social media services, app stores, and/or devices for minors, usually through submission of a government-issued identification or biometric data. While well-intentioned, these bills have received significant pushback for their constitutionality, privacy, and safety issues. Even casting these (valid) concerns aside, age verification mandates would set the stage for an enforcement nightmare that could lock foreign-born residents out of valuable digital services and their devices by extension. Before rashly acting to “protect the children,” policymakers should carefully consider these sweeping unintended consequences.
Foreign documentation could become a significant pain point for users forced to go through an age verification or estimation process. The difficulties compound in bills with parental consent mandates, in which parents and guardians must establish their parental/guardianship relation with a minor to device manufacturers in order to consent to and monitor a child account’s activity. In validating everyone from university students on visas to foreign-born citizens, these systems will inevitably handle foreign-issued documents with varying degrees of quality, a broad range of languages, and no guarantee of machine readability.
If the “commercially available” ID-based age verification systems are unable to process these documents correctly, users will inevitably be forced to go through the biometric data alternative (e.g., face scans) many of these bills propose. But, if this backup method proves inaccurate—and evidence says it will be—users will have to resort once again to using their foreign documentation through the appeals process. Even the most well-funded, established tech platforms have struggled to keep up with the diversity of languages and nationalities present in their user base. Thus, there is no guarantee that these age verification systems—whether first- or third party—will be staffed by a sufficiently-versed workforce to accurately arbitrate the appeals process.
But, being able to read and understand such documents is only half the battle. Verification systems would also need to be able to tell if the submitted documents are valid. That would require these systems to have knowledge of the anti-forgery “tells” of upwards of 190 different identity documents. And while some countries have introduced bar codes or technologically-advanced identity documentation, that is far from a universal standard. There is nothing to stop an individual from forging an identity document ostensibly from a foreign country, in the hopes that these systems are unable to gauge its validity.
The complexity of this verification process increases significantly with the introduction of parental consent mandates. The requirement that a parent or guardian needs to affirmatively consent to their child’s consumption of content or software downloads will require some sort of attestation process that confirms that the supervising adult account is in fact the parent or guardian. Such a mandate will require verification systems to collect, scan, and analyze documents like birth certificates, once again implicating foreign documentation. As a result, verification systems not only need to be able to detect the date of birth on various forms of identification but also decipher potentially complex familial or legal relationships.
Thousands of foreign-born residents in the United States are bound to be inconvenienced (to put it mildly) into a forced age verification system. For example, if a foreign-born student breaks or loses their phone while studying in the U.S. and buys a replacement phone, they would need to go through this byzantine age verification process. As far as U.S.-issued photo documentation goes, their best alternative could be their U.S.-issued visa. If for whatever reason that is not considered a valid document or the visa has all-too-common inaccuracies, they would have to resort to foreign documentation. Or, in the case of parental consent mandates, foreign-born underage children of residents or citizens will need to sort through their foreign-issued birth certificates.
Age verification mandates are well-intentioned policy plagued with issues. There is little doubt that the policymakers pushing for these bills have genuine concerns about children’s online safety. Unfortunately, this solution misses the mark legally and practically. Legislators should look into alternatives that better equip the government to tackle cybercrimes or prepare children to safely navigate their online lives.
