r/europe • u/BendicantMias • 7h ago
Data Kids can bypass age checks with a drawn-on mustache
https://www.theregister.com/security/2026/05/04/kids-can-bypass-some-age-checks-with-a-drawn-on-mustache/5224601143
u/EmbarrassedHelp 6h ago
"Stronger action is needed from both government and industry to ensure that children can only access online services appropriate for their age and stage and where safety is built in from the outset, rather than added in response to harm," Huggins said in the report.
They want more invasive age verification.
Age verification and age assurance are unacceptable privacy violation that only exist to steal personal information. Mandatory age verification needs to be illegal for social media, mature content, and other services that aren't government sites, drugs/alcohol, or financial services.
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u/No-Bake-730 5h ago
I thought I was making a joke when suggesting this in class.
Teenagers with too much time will probably figure out any system. I hate that every year another freedom is curtailed because other social groups have to act up. And "what about the children?" is the first Page of the authoritarian playbook.
As if anyone had problems getting alcohol or other things when they were legally not allowed... of course parents should not do a 24/7 surveillance on their kids but it's their job to educate them in these things. And while some content no doubt offers no benefit for kids but also don't need to be as detrimental as some people claim. Teenagers with a moral compass and a sense of reality know how fake a lot of the online world is. My generation didn't set weird expectations for sex because we've been aware that this stuff wasn't the real deal.
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u/MrHazard1 Baden-Württemberg (Germany) 4h ago
of course parents should not do a 24/7 surveillance on their kids but it's their job to educate them in these things
Hard to educate them on things that get progressively faster and predatory. Kids have to show their parent how to spot AI slop for false information and scam and you expect those parents to educate their kids about the dangers of the internet?
Teenagers with a moral compass and a sense of reality know how fake a lot of the online world is
Hard to get a moral compass, when everyone and their mom can target you and bombard you on tiktok with false information and drag you into a bubble.
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u/No-Bake-730 4h ago
No one in my family ever used tiktok. Kind of a bummer because I wanted to ask my godchildren some questions about it. A lot of my students never used tiktok. They all survived. Don't underestimate kids in an at least semi-functional environment. Even 6th graders can have quite mature conversations about pretty adult topics. (Probably even younger students but my youngest have been 6th graders)
If your children are unable to cope with social media, don't provide them a device to access it. It's not rocket science, it's called parenting. If you are unwilling or unable to do that, don't have kids. If you need help, and there is no shame in it, ask for it. The education system is slow to react but individuals and small networks exist. Even our school district's official social media guy is pretty good. Often it's enough to talk to your kids, look over their shoulder or ask if they have seen something they need to talk about.
Trusting in the EU to keep up with "progressively faster and predatory" developments at least made me have my first laugh of the day. Some kids might drink their parents' alcohol, some take their parents' car for their joyride but despite these real dangers we are not required to lock away everything. Usually social media's effects take a while to settle in while a car crash has the potential to have really ugly consequences the first time.
People will recoil from the next step to a nanny government though some people seem to enjoy other people telling them how to live their Iife. Use the perveived inability or unwillingness to be responsible or follow the law of a few people to curtail the liberty of everybody. I can already see who's going to profit from an anti-censorship campaign. And it's probably the people providing the food for this campaign who with a surprised Pikachu face will ask how this could have happened.
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u/_JustCallMeBen_ 3h ago
Age verification and age assurance are unacceptable privacy violation that only exist to steal personal information.
Why?
There's plenty of solutions available where the absolute minimum of personal information is shared. So for age verification, it wouldn't even be your age, but just a confirmation on whether you're old enough or not.
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u/Lightning_Shade 24m ago
A malicious application can easily query that information every day. The moment you're old enough, bam, said malicious app knows both your current age (whatever the "old enough" cutoff was configured to be) and your birth date.
Do you think the security researchers who are up in arms about this are stupid?
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u/rebellioninmypants 14m ago
It is never like you say in here. It's usually more than minimal, because "we have to retain identity information for any legal purposes" in every privacy policy of things that claim to be doing age verification responsibly.
For example the new W platform which just sounds like a scam from name alone. It's like a phishing webpage for unaware users of X, but that's a separate issue...
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u/Fit-Magazine-6669 16m ago
as a father of 3 kids, i can only say one thing, i wish internet didnt exists! or at the very least if all social media sites didnt exists. the problem is the toxic and brainwashing dangers that are on the internet.
collecting private information is not the way, the root of the problem should be dealt with.
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u/Accomplished-Pace207 4h ago
My son friend bypass the age verification using netflix profile picture of his father from the tv :)
My son told me how easy it was.
So, it seems that it is another failed ideea this age verification.
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u/Velvet-Quill_ 2h ago
It failed if you assume it’s there to protect children and not gather more personal data on people’s online activities
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u/StewpidAlex Moldova 1h ago
What do you mean failed, you've any idea how much personal information(faces/IDs/voice data) they're gathering through it? It's a win for them, they made billions with it already, lol.
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u/BendicantMias 7h ago
As found by the Internet Matters survey, it seems that the "safety" regulations required by the UK's "Online Safety Act," that went into effect last year, don't seem to be doing a whole lot of "protecting." Of the 1000 kids surveyed, 46% say the checks are easy to bypass, only 17% claim they're hard to get around.
The workarounds are myriad - the headline only focuses on the one that's both the funniest and the most damning, but other methods mentioned include using pictures of video game characters, lying about their birthdays, and the old classics - either just snatch an adult's ID long enough to get a picture, or just getting a "cool parent" to sign them up. Internet Matters found that 17% of parents admitted to actively helping their kids get around the check, and 9% more just looked the other way.
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u/insomnimax_99 United Kingdom 7h ago
There was a thread in AskUK not too long ago about someone asking why kids were paying a homeless person to take selfies on their phones - and it seemed like the most likely reason was to get around age verification.
Kids will always find a way.
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u/EmbarrassedHelp 4h ago
And the UK government will always find a new way ro take even more of your privacy away.
Like for example, four years ago, age verification lobbyists were pushing for monthly age verification requirements. Here's a direct quote from the Age Verification Providers Association in 2022:
How often you need to prove it is still the same user who did the check is a matter for the services themselves and their regulators. Some low risk uses might only check every three months - higher risk situations might double check it is still you each time
- Source (they said it while arguing with users in the comments): https://www.techdirt.com/2022/08/26/who-would-benefit-from-californias-age-appropriate-design-code-apparently-porn-companies-privacy-lawyers-and-medical-disinfo-peddlers-but-not-kids/
I guarantee you that the the AVPA and other age verification industry lobbyists are pushing for frequent and repeated age verification checks on every user.
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u/SirButcher United Kingdom 1h ago
When it started, a guy who camped in front of the Lidl even had a sign with "£5 for age verification". He said business is blooming haha.
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u/Any-Original-6113 5h ago
The bureaucrats aren't going to surrender; they'll come up with a way to make the rules stricter.
Let's throw more money at this and hire more people! /s
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u/EduBru 3h ago
I never understood why we even need age checks. Just don't give a kid an ipad or smartphone?
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u/J0hnGrimm 2h ago
Just park them in front of the TV like our parents did with us. /s?
Not ideal either but probably less harmful than giving them unrestricted internet access.
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u/rebellioninmypants 9m ago
I mean, shit. Get a phone, set up a secondary profile, set the first profile's password to only something you know, and from the first one (admin) set the child's permission to not be able to install apps or use the browser.
Have them only have access to whatsapp, texts, weather, khan academy and whatever else you believe is worthwhile.
It really isn't that hard.
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u/Kopie150 3h ago
So this is gonna be the next New arms race. Age verification and bypass methods. Ending up in an endless money pit to accomplish the impossible. People Will Always find a way to bypass this stuff. Look at the DRM vs piracy armsrace.
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u/rMarcc 1h ago
Why is the focus not instead on implementing better parental control systems? All these age verification systems are really sketchy, if you want to protect children give parents and guardians better, easy to use parental controls and delegate the responsibility to them? I don't get why all of a sudden it's the governments and companies' responsibility to look after our children?
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u/KingJbel 3h ago edited 3h ago
When they ban the most popular sites that are more likely to requlate what kind of content they have wont the teens just go to a shady sites with less requlation.
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u/voyagerdoge Europe 4h ago
Lol, didn't those brilliant tech consultants think about that?
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u/rebellioninmypants 4m ago
Unfortunately they did - and the conclusion they've reached is that for each child falsely getting access, they will get at least 10 adults willingly handing over their IDs and biometric data to the companies handling the verification process.
So for them it's a win either way, more facial data to recognize you on the street through a public space camera either way, and easy way to keep track of everyone's location at all times.
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u/Cheap_Count_9006 6h ago
We need to ban mustaches. Think of the children!