Consider the shovel. A sturdy tool based on an ancient design, a shovel is great for uprooting things. However, if there are poisonous shrubs that need digging up, a shovel is only useful if one elects to use it; and specifically to dig, rather than to, say, brain gophers. In this, a shovel is like any tool \u2013 and that includes biometric age assurance technology.<\/p>\n
Perspectives on age assurance legislation and implementation continue to clash in Australia, which led the way on social media age restrictions<\/a> with its Social Media Minimum Age (SMMA) requirement, which came into effect in December 2025. It has become a global hotspot for progress and debate over online age checks, as Big Tech tries its best to maneuver amid incoming regulations.<\/p>\n Pane comes for 2025 Age Assurance Technology Trial with weak sting<\/p>\n The Australian government\u2019s Age Assurance Technology Trial, which published its final report<\/a> in September 2025, continues to draw scrutiny from a former member of the Stakeholder Advisory Board who resigned over concerns about the trial\u2019s methodology.<\/p>\n A release from non-profit privacy watchdog Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA<\/a>) claims that documents newly released under a freedom of information request made by news publication Crikey show that the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC<\/a>) shares EFA\u2019s concerns about \u201cinaccurate claims around privacy compliance\u201d by participating vendors in the AATT\u2019s draft and final reports.<\/p>\n The OAIC\u2019s internal assessments, EFA says, \u201calign substantially with the early warnings and independent observations\u201d by EFA Chair John Pane, the former AATT board member who has publicly accused<\/a> the trial of being light on substance and prioritizing \u201cpolitical sound bites.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThese FOI documents validate EFA\u2019s position and its strong concerns about misleading privacy claims made by the AATT, demonstrating that Australia\u2019s chief privacy regulator shared similar concerns about the trial\u2019s methodology and findings on privacy issues,\u201d Pane says.<\/p>\n Pane: AATT did not do things it never intended to do<\/p>\n Pane\u2019s concern was always rooted in a dissatisfaction with the established scope of the trial. Both the government and trial organizers at the Age Check Certification Scheme (ACCS<\/a>) emphasized throughout that the undertaking was to establish whether or not privacy preserving age assurance<\/a> was possible in Australia.<\/p>\n Accusing the AATT of \u201cprivacy washing,\u201d Pane says the trial set \u201can incredibly low bar for vendor compliance, bizarrely inferring operational privacy capabilities simply by reading participants\u2019 externally facing privacy policies.\u201d Yet the trial was not a compliance certification, and while vendor statements played a role in evaluations, external testing also took place for top vendors.<\/p>\n Pane decries that \u201cwhen the AATT Final Report was eventually released<\/a>, it was predictably cloaked in government-friendly political rhetoric and sound bites, broadly claiming the technology was \u2018private, robust, and effective.\u2019 Yet, while comprehensive in page count, the report conveniently excluded fundamental performance indicators from its scope \u2013 most notably, the ease with which these technologies can be circumvented by technical means or third-party collusion.\u201d<\/p>\n Circumvention was not within the scope of the trial, which aimed only to establish the possibilities in the context of currently available technology.<\/p>\n \u201cEFA was the first civil society organisation to give the AATT a \u2018big red F,\u2019 and the release of the OAIC documents proves that assessment was entirely justified,\u201d Pane says, clearly quite chuffed with himself.<\/p>\n In the documents released under the FOI act, the OAIC says \u201coverarching concerns remain regarding the conclusive references to privacy and language in the report that overstates the privacy evaluation that has taken place in the Australian context.\u201d<\/p>\n Regulation for me, but not for thee<\/p>\n If Pane seems proud of his would-be gotcha, it is surely because it reinforces the position his job requires him to take, and not over his proposed alternative solution. Age assurance laws<\/a> and age verification technology, he says, are a band-aid on the real problem.<\/p>\n \u201cInstead of pursuing a fundamentally flawed prohibition model, the focus must shift to regulating the platforms themselves,\u201d he says. \u201cWe urgently need to break the surveillance-based, data-extractive business models of social media giants. The solution lies in forcing a statutory digital duty of care onto these platforms to protect all users \u2013 not just children \u2013 from algorithmic manipulation and digital surveillance<\/a>, while simultaneously uplifting digital civics and online safety education for primary and secondary school students.\u201d<\/p>\n Again, we have an argument that says age assurance asks for too much data (proof of age) in order to keep kids off the social media platforms that have created and shaped our data-ravenous culture. Kids shouldn\u2019t have to give away a secret, EFA says, to gain access to the secret stealing machine.<\/p>\n Moreover, his suggestion that, instead of regulating social media platforms with age checks, the government should establish a digital duty of care, is noble but naive, and demonstrates the contradiction in Pane\u2019s argument. While he proclaims the need to break the \u201csurveillance-based, data-extractive business models of social media giants,\u201d he also suggests we can fix them. Put some proper laws on the Silicon Valley types, the thinking goes, and they\u2019ll shape up. Besides, we can teach the kids to be smart online, can\u2019t we?<\/p>\n This is tantamount to suggesting that the real way to stop kids from smoking is to force tobacco companies to make their product less addictive and harmful to human health. But we know now that cigarettes are inextricably tied to their addictive quality; addiction is, arguably, the main product. The answer is not for society to pursue a healthier cigarette. Indeed, the UK government has taken a different path: under the incoming generational tobacco ban<\/a>, no one born after 2009 will be able to purchase cigarettes. The idea is to phase the habit out of memory through a moving age threshold.<\/p>\n In conclusion, then, Pane\u2019s boastful nose-thumbing at the AATT does contain the kernel of a useful idea. If he is serious about his concerns, the EFA must begin a comprehensive campaign pushing Australia to phase out existing large social media platforms entirely. Otherwise, Pane and his peers will spend their days chasing an oxymoron in \u201cprivacy preserving social media.\u201d<\/p>\n Laws ineffective when companies break them<\/p>\n Another of the EFA\u2019s arguments can be stated as follows: age assurance in Australia isn\u2019t working, because the social media platforms aren\u2019t doing it<\/a>. Indeed, data from a recent survey\u00a0shows that, of the total number of users under 16 who had accounts on Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok before the prohibition, 70 percent maintained access. This suggests early reports of takedowns in the tens of millions are probably overblown.<\/p>\n The government, however, is not the one filing the numbers; that would be the social media sites, which are supposed to be following the law. A report from the Guardian quotes<\/a> Australia\u2019s communications minister, Anika Wells, who says the data is \u201cevidence of the absolute bare minimum from social media companies,\u201d who benefit from reporting that says the law isn\u2019t working.<\/p>\n \u201cThey want you all to report that the laws are failing. That helps them in their quest to reduce regulation, to minimize it the world over. So I\u2019m not surprised by any of this. We expected this.\u201d<\/p>\n OAIC launches public consultation on Children\u2019s Online Privacy Code<\/p>\n The government, to its credit, appears committed to careful assessment of how its law is playing out in real time. The eSafety Commissioner has already launched a major evaluation<\/a> to take place over multiple years.<\/p>\n Now, the OAIC<\/a> is seeking public input on an exposure draft of its Children\u2019s Online Privacy Code, which a release says includes new rules requiring agencies and organizations to \u201censure they consider the best interests of children before collecting, using or disclosing their personal information.\u201d<\/p>\n Unlike the Social Media Minimum Age Act, the code<\/a> applies broadly across online services where children are likely to face the highest risk. That implicates \u201cmost apps, games and websites that children and teenagers use daily, as well as online services that are primarily\u202fconcerned with the activities of children.\u201d<\/p>\n Under the code, direct marketing is only permissible with consent, when in the child\u2019s best interests and when the personal information is collected directly from the child (rather than third parties); kids get a right to request destruction of their personal information; and privacy notices and policies must be written in clear, accessible, age-appropriate language.<\/p>\n The code draws from like-minded international legislation<\/a> such as the UK\u2019s Age Appropriate Design Code, but includes \u201csome novel protections\u201d geared toward kids. One is a requirement that online services notify children when their parents consent to the collection of personal information on their behalf. Another notifies them when other users (including parents) are tracking their geolocation.<\/p>\n Public consultation<\/a> on the draft code runs for 60 days, until June 5, 2026. Kids, parents and carers, industry and civil society and other interested parties are invited to offer input.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has been estimated that by the time a child turns 13, around 72 million pieces of data will have been collected about them, making them vulnerable to harms from data breaches, discrimination, algorithmic bias and targeted advertising of harmful products, amongst other risks,\u201d says Privacy Commissioner Carly Kind.<\/p>\n The code, she says, won\u2019t restrict or limit young people\u2019s participation in online spaces. \u201cInstead, it raises the standard for privacy protections in Australia and puts the onus on online services to do better when handling children\u2019s personal information online.\u201d<\/p>\n The OAIC recently participated in the \u201cglobal privacy sweep\u201d with other data protection and privacy authorities from around the world, examining almost 900 websites and apps used by children. The sweep<\/a> found that the amount of data being collected on a regular basis has increased since 2015.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\tArticle Topics<\/p>\n Age Assurance Technology Trial<\/a> \u00a0|\u00a0 age verification<\/a> \u00a0|\u00a0 Australia age verification<\/a> \u00a0|\u00a0 children<\/a> \u00a0|\u00a0 data privacy<\/a> \u00a0|\u00a0 Office of the Information Commissioner (OAIC)<\/a> \u00a0|\u00a0 social media<\/a><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tLatest Biometrics News<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tApr 20, 2026, 1:06 pm EDT\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Precise Biometrics closed what CEO Joakim Nydemark calls \u201ca challenging year\u201d with a positive EBITDA and cashflow. The company netted\u2026<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tApr 20, 2026, 1:01 pm EDT\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n A new research paper explores a signal-level approach to voice morphing attacks that exposes vulnerabilities in biometric voice recognition systems\u2026.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tApr 20, 2026, 12:31 pm EDT\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Mitek and Synectics Solutions have formed a new partnership to help UK insurers identify fraud earlier in digital insurance applications\u2026<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tApr 20, 2026, 12:20 pm EDT\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Cybercrime losses have risen significantly, surpassing $20 billion, while phishing and spoofing is the dominant cyber-enabled fraud activity, reports the\u2026<\/p>\n
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