Age Verification

Table of Contents

The information provided by IFTAS is for general guidance and informational purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice and should not be relied upon as such. IFTAS is not a law firm and does not offer legal services. For advice on legal or regulatory matters, please consult a qualified professional.

Social media age verification usually falls into one of two categories: laws to set and enforce age thresholds for the use of social media, and laws to protect young people from harmful content and age-inappropriate experiences while using social media. Not all laws apply to all servers, and some laws have express protections or don’t apply to small, personal or non-commercial activities.

Many countries have laws that are not specific to social media, but prohibit data collection from minors. Each country and jurisdiction is different, and one way to ascertain the likely minimum age is to review Google’s age requirements for a Google account.

Global Social Media Age Restriction Tracker: Tech Policy Press maintains a visual aid to monitor age restrictions worldwide.

In all cases, if your service also allows the publishing of pornographic content, additional laws may apply. For example, several US states have introduced new laws that require adult content websites to perform “reasonable” age verification. Fines for companies failing to meet age verification requirements can total up to $10,000 per day.

Australia

The Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024 is a blanket ban on social media for children under 16, and will come into effect November 2025.

European Union

GDPR requires that your users are at least old enough to give consent for their personal data to be processed, if you rely on consent under Article 8 of GDPR, as a basis for processing some or all personal data you obtain from your users. The age of digital consent varies between EU member states so if you have users in the EU, you will need to also determine their location and apply the relevant age as part of this check. Many services set a minimum age for users in their terms and conditions. The default age in the EU is 16, so while a 15 year old in Germany may be permitted to open an account under the terms and conditions of the platform, they may still need their parents’ permission if their personal data is to be processed based on their consent.

Video sharing sites that publish material are subject to the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) which contains specific rules to protect minors from inappropriate on-demand media audiovisual services.

In Germany, minors between the ages of 13 and 16 are allowed to use social media in Germany only if their parents give consent. Belgium enacted a law in 2018 requiring children to be at least 13 years old to create a social media account without parental permission. In Italy, children under the age of 14 need parental consent to sign up for social media accounts, while no consent is required from that age upwards.

In France, the SREN Law (Sécurité et Régulation de l’Espace Numérique – Security and Regulation of the Digital Space) requires sites to obtain approval of a user’s parent or guardian if they are under 15, using technical solutions that comply with guidelines set out by the French Arcom regulator. Social media firms that breach the law will face a fine of up to 1 percent of their global revenues. The law will also allow parents to request suspension of accounts belonging to their children under 15 and will require sites to offer tools to limit the time children spend on the platform.

Norway

Children under the age of 13 require parental consent to use social media. Regulation is being proposed to raise the threshold to 15.

United Kingdom

The Online Safety Act is is a new set of laws that protects children and adults online. It puts a range of new duties on social media companies and search services, making them more responsible for their users’ safety on their platforms.

United States

Specific requirements for age verification vary by state in the US. Mississippi requires “pornographic media” to have age verification systems in place and specifies “reasonable methods,” such as commercial age verification systems that verify a user’s age with a government-issued ID or “any commercially reasonable method that relies on public or private transactional data.” In Utah, any website with adult content that “fails to perform reasonable age verification methods” could be held liable for “damages resulting from a minor’s accessing the material.” Texas requires adult content websites to use “reasonable age verification methods,” suggesting the submission of a government-issued ID, “verification through an independent, third-party age verification service,” or usage of a “commercially reasonable method that relies on public or private transactional data” to verify users’ ages as potential pathways for verification.

For laws specific to social media, see https://avpassociation.com/us-state-age-assurance-laws-for-social-media/

For laws specific to adult content, see https://avpassociation.com/4271-2/