Australia finds age detection tech has many flaws, but works

General News
1

Australia has been in the news for its upcoming ban on minors under 16. Recently, a trial of age detection software has found that although current scanners do have flaws, they still are effective at discerning a subject’s age from photos.

On Friday the team that ran those trials published its preliminary findings [PDF], the main one being “Age assurance can be done in Australia and can be private, robust and effective.”

“The preliminary findings indicate that there are no significant technological barriers preventing the deployment of effective age assurance systems in Australia. These solutions are technically feasible, can be integrated flexibly into existing services and can support the safety and rights of children online,” wrote Tony Allan, project director of the trial.

The findings do not, however, suggest that implementing age assurance will be easy.

The government so far is rushing to implement a broad age detection mechanism before the December 1st enforcement date. However, this is not the main issue with the social media ban law.

Australia’s government has promised to implement its social media ban on December 1st, so there’s not much time to address the issues mentioned in the preliminary findings. The initiative has broad public support. The Murdoch press, which can nearly always find a reason to criticize Australia’s center-left government, has campaigned in support of the policy using the slogan “Let Them Be Kids”.

Opponents of the policy point to social media’s central role in many aspects of modern life, and suggest that isolating kids from it until they turn 16 will leave them unprepared for the many perils found online. Others wonder why the scheme doesn’t apply to YouTube.

2

How long will it take for governments to realize that restricting the internet is a bad idea? Australia might be coerce a few major Western companies to “enforce” ID checks on Australian IP addresses, but this doesn’t prevent:

  1. Simply using a VPN or other IP changer to bypass the geoblock
  2. Using an internet service that doesn’t listen to the Australian government
  3. Using a legal adult’s social media account
  4. Using a legal adult’s ID
  5. Spoofing an AI-generated picture of an adult

1-2 can only be mitigated by subjecting Australia to a Great Firewall-type censoring system, agressively blocking VPNs and connections outside of Australia.

they still are effective at discerning a subject’s age from photos.

I’m assuming “effective” means "decent enough error rate? What error rate are they trying to achieve? This article claims success in a goal that wasn’t clearly specified.

Even with AI,, determining one’s chronological age from a photo with high accuracy is not possible. Many people’s faces barely change from around 15-20 years old, some people look older or more youthful, depending on various factors such as health, genetics, ethnic background, facial structure, etc. The most accurate age estimation methodologies - bone and dental analysis - still only correctly estimate age about 25% of the time for some people..

The time between one “age” to the next can be as little as a few days, hours, milliseconds etc. To be able to “accurately determine” someone’s age, a facial scanner would have to be able to, at the least, accurately determine how many days old a human is based on a face. Does anyone think this is really possible?

One of the fundamental problems with age verification (and any age-based laws) is that chronological age isn’t a good predictor of how someone will be able to handle tasks and responsibilities. A well-socialized, mentally healthy 15 year old will likely fare much better with social media access than an insecure, socially isolated 17 year old.

If the government’s goal is to prevent psychological harm, the most logical approach is to limit certain activities based on development, maturity and personality, not how many times someone has orbited the Sun. This is the task of us parents, who actually know our children better than a government fixated on astrology.

1 Like