Tracking the shifts: Age assurance in motion

While privacy is undoubtedly central to the conversation around age assurance, parents, technologists, youth, lawmakers and educators all bring unique perspectives to discussions on how to best protect young people online.

The age assurance issue requires more than technical fixes — it requires listening to young users, thoughtful questioning, and the design of secure, understandable, protective and empowering platforms.

As one privacy regulator noted, age assurance is a tool, not an end in itself, for positive online youth experiences. At its best, it protects; at its worst, it bars young people from essential information, expression and connection.

The legislative landscape for age assurance across North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Latin America, and Asia-Pacific is shifting — with evolving regulatory efforts impacting technical and policy questions.

North America

While the United States lacks a comprehensive consumer privacy law, the recently attempted American Privacy Rights Act would have prohibited the transfer of a minor's sensitive information without affirmative, express consent and would have — due to provisions added later — prohibited targeted advertising to covered minors.

The APRA's knowledge standard would have applied when a covered entity had knowledge fairly implied based on objective circumstances that an individual is a child, teen or covered minor. As such, the APRA is not necessarily an age verification law, but the bill would have directed the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to evaluate the feasibility of a common verifiable consent mechanism.