The Draft Statement of Strategic Priorities for Online Safety, published on 20 November, outlines the UK Government’s overarching objectives for ensuring safer online environments. Central to achieving this is the use of age assurance technology to ensure platforms provide age-appropriate and secure digital experiences while respecting user privacy and promoting accessibility.
Let’s explore the Government’s key areas of strategic priorities regarding online safety in more detail.
Safety by design
Embed safety by design to deliver safe online experiences for all users – but especially children – tackle violence against women and girls, and work towards ensuring that there are no safe havens for illegal content and activity, including fraud, child sexual exploitation and abuse, and illegal disinformation.
Transparency and accountability
Ensure industry transparency and accountability for delivering online safety outcomes, driving increased trust in services, and expanding the evidence base to provide safer experiences for users.
Agile regulation
Deliver an agile approach to regulation, ensuring the framework is robust in monitoring and tackling emerging harms—such as AI-generated content—and increasing friction for technologies that enable online harm.
Inclusivity and resilience
Create an inclusive, informed, and vibrant digital society that is resilient to potential harms, including disinformation.
Technology and innovation
Foster the innovation of online safety technologies to improve users’ safety and drive growth.
The Safety by Design imperative
Safety by Design is a proactive framework that prioritises user safety, especially for children and vulnerable individuals, during the design and development of products and services. It aims to mitigate risks, such as exposure to harmful content, online grooming, or exploitative advertising before they occur.
However, ensuring safety hinges on understanding who the users are, particularly their age. Platforms cannot design effective safeguards or tailored experiences without first knowing whether a user is a child, a teenager, or an adult. This is where age assurance technology becomes vital.
What is age assurance?
Age assurance refers to the range of methods used to identify a user’s age or age range online. It protects children from harmful or inappropriate content online and helps platforms tailor their services to provide age-appropriate experiences and safeguards. Age assurance methods encompass age verification and age estimation, ranging from AI-driven estimation techniques, such as behavioural patterns or facial analysis, to more traditional verification methods, such as ID checks.
Unlike simple, self-declared age gates (e.g., “Are you over 18? Tick yes or no”), modern age assurance systems are designed to be more accurate and privacy-preserving. They can help platforms implement tailored safety features without requiring intrusive data collection.
At Verifymy, we recognise the significance of empowering users with choice. Our diverse range of age verification and estimation methods are designed to prioritise flexibility, mitigating the risks associated with bias and exclusion.
How age assurance supports safety by design
Preventing harmful content exposure
By accurately determining user age, platforms can ensure that children and teenagers are shielded from inappropriate or harmful content, such as explicit material, violence, or misinformation. For example, video-sharing platforms can restrict access to age-restricted videos, while social media networks can block adult-themed advertisements for younger users.
Tailored user experiences
Age assurance enables the creation of experiences suited to different developmental stages. For younger children, this might mean curated content libraries and stricter controls on communication features. For teenagers, platforms could provide more autonomy while offering safety features, such as reporting tools or privacy prompts.
Empowering parental controls
With accurate age data, parental control tools can function more effectively, allowing caregivers to monitor and manage their children’s online activities, while respecting their growing independence.
Compliance with regulations
The Online Safety Act, The Digital Services Act, and similar frameworks worldwide require platforms to consider the needs of under-18s in their design processes. Age assurance is essential for compliance, ensuring platforms can apply appropriate safeguards where needed.
Building trust in the digital ecosystem
Users and regulators alike are demanding more accountability from tech companies. By adopting robust age assurance solutions, platforms can demonstrate their commitment to protecting young users, fostering trust and loyalty among their user base.
Bridging the gap between safety and privacy
While the benefits of age assurance are clear, it’s essential to implement these technologies responsibly. Privacy-preserving solutions, such as anonymised age estimation tools or systems that minimise data collection and retention, are crucial to maintaining user trust. The goal should always be to achieve safety outcomes without compromising user rights or creating new risks.
Looking ahead: Age assurance as the standard
Age assurance is rapidly becoming a foundational component of online safety. As the tech landscape evolves and regulatory pressures mount, platforms that fail to adopt robust age assurance measures risk falling behind.
Moreover, innovation in this space is accelerating. Advances in AI and machine learning are making age assurance more accurate, seamless, and scalable, paving the way for widespread adoption across industries.
Conclusion
Age assurance technology is not merely a regulatory tick-box exercise—it’s a vital enabler of safer, more inclusive digital spaces. As highlighted in the Draft Statement of Strategic Priorities for Online Safety, robust age assurance is critical to realising the UK Government’s vision of a safer online environment.
By embedding these tools into their platforms, companies can uphold the principles of Safety by Design, offering age-appropriate experiences that protect and empower users of all ages. Integrating age assurance into digital design is not just a best practice—it’s a moral, regulatory, and business imperative.
Verifymy can support with the implementation of highly effective age assurance. Contact us to learn more.
