As parents and caregivers, we all strive to keep our children safe online. Many third-party filtering and monitoring tools now offer solutions that claim to protect youth by restricting access to certain websites and allowing parents and caregivers to oversee their children’s online activities. Recently, however, some companies selling child online safety hardware and software, as well as some child safety advocates have shifted their focus to a new tactic – emphasizing that age verification on all social media and gaming platforms is the only way to keep kids safe from online dangers, especially from online predators. They further emphasize that until this happens, we should be delaying a youth from accessing social media and gaming platforms until they are in their late teens because the danger is just too great.
This idea might sound appealing on the surface, after all, what parent or caregiver wouldn’t want a clear-cut way to ensure their child is only interacting with other age-appropriate users? But there are several key challenges in this approach, both in terms of effectiveness and privacy. Let’s take a closer look at some of the challenges with this solution and how it might put kids at greater risk by diverting attention from more significant threats and comprehensive protection strategies.
Contrary to popular belief, many online predators don’t always hide their age or identity, and this openness can be a tactic designed to build trust and normalize inappropriate relationships. Studies have shown that predators often use “grooming” techniques that rely on transparency, honesty, and an appeal to authority or mentorship to establish connections with younger individuals. (1) When predators openly admit their age, they may be attempting to reduce the perceived threat, giving young people the impression that they’re “safe” and “trustworthy.”
Here’s a look at why predators sometimes don’t hide their age:
- Research on online grooming indicates that, in some cases, a predator’s openness about their age can lead minors to view them as “less threatening” or even as mentors. A study by Craven, Brown, and Gilchrist (2) outlines how online groomers use trust-building behaviors, such as self-disclosure, to appear relatable and non-threatening, fostering a sense of friendship and reliability that makes the target feel safe, despite the age difference.
- Some predators frame their interactions as friendships or mentorships, convincing young people that an age difference doesn’t matter. By not hiding their age, they may reinforce a message that their relationship is “normal” or that age differences are irrelevant both online or off line. This approach can disarm a young person’s defenses, as noted in research from Briggs, Simon, and Simonsen (3), which found that offenders often downplay the risks of adult-teen relationships by normalizing them.
- Some predators may use their age as a way to exert a subtle power dynamic, portraying themselves as experienced or knowledgeable, which can appeal to teenagers seeking guidance or validation. This dynamic is examined by Whittle et al. (4), who analyzed grooming patterns and found that some adults leverage their age to portray themselves as “wise” or “protective.”
- Openly acknowledging their age may also appeal to a teen’s desire for autonomy or rebellion against parental control. When a predator is forthright about being older, they might frame the relationship as a “mature” bond that is misunderstood by society, encouraging the teen to keep it a secret and appealing to a developmental desire to push boundaries, which is a well-documented adolescent trait (5).
These approaches highlight how predators can sometimes manipulate their victims without concealing their age, using honesty to undermine typical caution signals that teens might otherwise recognize – age-verification will not prevent this.
The Problem with Age Verification Technology
Many online safety advocates argue that implementing foolproof age verification on all platforms would solve the issue of keeping young people safe online. However, there’s a significant challenge – no age verification technology is foolproof, especially on global platforms with millions of users. Current technology can’t verify age with absolute certainty without collecting sensitive personal data, which raises its own set of unique risks.
For truly reliable verification, companies would need access to sensitive, often intrusive data – such as biometrics, government-issued ID, or other identifying information that could put young people’s privacy at risk if misused or breached. And unfortunately, no system is immune to hacking, making any database of sensitive youth information a tempting target for cybercriminals.
In other words, implementing universal age verification on every social media and gaming platform would likely create as many new risks as it solves.
Asking children and their families to provide deeply personal information opens a whole new set of safety and privacy issues. As stated earlier, parents might be asked to share images, government ID, or other sensitive data to “verify” a child’s age on various platforms. This information, once uploaded, is at risk of being stored, used, or sold in ways families can’t fully control.
Relying on third-party verifiers adds another layer of privacy vulnerability. Many of these age-verification vendors are private companies with their own interests and are not always transparent about how data is stored, shared, or protected. A data breach involving young people’s sensitive information could have serious long-term consequences, with families facing risks of identity theft, fraud, or the misuse of their data.
We’re not saying that stronger age-verification measures aren’t needed on adult-oriented sites, like those hosting explicit content, as a safeguard to prevent underage access. However, when it comes to social media and gaming platforms, we need to carefully evaluate the potential privacy and safety risks that heightened age-verification requirements might bring to young users. It’s essential to strike a thoughtful balance; while age-verification can help prevent inappropriate content exposure, excessive measures could unintentionally compromise our kid’s data and introduce new threats in the digital landscape. In today’s online world, we believe a balanced approach remains critical to fostering a safe and supportive online environment for young people.
When it comes to age-verification, we believe privacy should be a top priority, especially for children and teens who may not fully understand the implications of sharing personal information online. Overly rigorous age-verification systems could mean collecting sensitive data that, if mishandled, could place young users at risk for identity theft, surveillance, or targeted advertising.
Instead of relying solely on age-gating, we need to consider a more holistic approach to safety strategies, like improved and mandated parental controls, digital literacy education, and transparent privacy policies that empower both kids, parents, and caregivers to navigate the digital world safely and confidently.
Ensuring the emotional, psychological, physical, and social well-being of young users online isn’t about enforcing rigid barriers – it’s about creating an onlife ecosystem where privacy, safety, security, and accessibility work together to promote healthy, age and developmentally appropriate online engagement.
Overlooking the Real Risks of Exploitation
One of the most troubling aspects of the emphasis on age verification is that it can make parents feel as though online predators are the primary threat. In reality, statistics show that most cases of child sexual exploitation and abuse are committed by someone the child already knows, loves, or trusts often within their family, school, church, or community setting. (6)
The emphasis on the online “stranger” predator risks pulling our focus away from the real dangers; abusers within children’s trusted circles who will also use technology – how does age-verification or age-gating protect our kids in these situations? While online safety is undoubtedly important, we need to balance our efforts, ensuring we’re not creating a false sense of security that if we solve online stranger-related risks, we’re protecting our children from all forms of exploitation.
What Parents Can Do Instead
Rather than relying solely on age verification technology, there are steps parents can take today to more effectively protect their children online while also safeguarding their privacy.
- One of the most effective tools for protecting children online is teaching them digital literacy and how to recognize unsafe interactions and protect their boundaries, both online and offline – move away from teaching “stranger danger” and instead teach “situational danger”, something we have been doing here at the White Hatter for over 30 years. Discussing what constitutes safe and respectful behavior can help kids identify situations that feel wrong and empower them to speak up no matter if the predator is someone they don’t know or some who they know, love, or trust .
- Create an environment where children feel comfortable coming to you with any concerns about their online experiences. If children feel they won’t get in trouble for sharing problematic behaviour, they’re more likely to alert you to uncomfortable or concerning online interactions.
- While it’s important to respect children’s autonomy, parents should also be aware of their children’s online activities in age-appropriate ways. For younger children, this might mean using non-intrusive tools to help monitor interactions, while for older teens, discussions around privacy and safer usage can help them navigate independently.
- Without overstepping privacy concerns, parents and caregivers can encourage platforms to be more vigilant about enforcing community standards, monitoring suspicious behavior, and providing better reporting features for young users. Holding platforms accountable for unsafe environments can be a powerful step forward, without demanding invasive data collection from children. We should also be putting pressure on government to enact legislation to make sure this happens. (7)
While age-verification may seem like a convenient shortcut to ensuring online safety, it is neither foolproof nor without risks. As parents, we can do more to protect our children by focusing on open communication, digital literacy, and empowering them with the knowledge and confidence to navigate online spaces safely. Keeping children safe online isn’t about simply creating barriers – it’s about building resilient, informed, and empowered young people who are prepared to face both the online and offline worlds or what we call the onlife world.
Our children’s privacy and safety should never be compromised for the illusion of security, especially when real protection starts within our own homes and communities.
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Facts Not Fear, Facts Not Emotions, Enlighten Not Frighten, Know Tech Not No Tech
References
1/ https://thewhitehatter.ca/online-sexual-predation-and-exploitation/
2/ https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2006-23335-007
3/ https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2011-04034-005
5/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24438579/
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