Note: The discussion was held under the Chatham House Rule. All quotes have been edited for clarity and brevity. 

“We’re assuming here that verification is going to solve all our problems about children’s online safety. It’s a high effort, low impact, expensive, no-win proposition”, a speaker pointed out during MediaNama’s May 15 roundtable discussion in Bengaluru on ‘Age verification and restricting social media for children’, where speakers repeatedly raised concerns about how age verification at scale could lead to online surveillance of everyone, not just children.

Nikhil Pahwa, founder and editor-in-chief of MediaNama, argued that age verification systems cannot function without verifying everyone who uses a service. “To verify who’s a child, they’ll have to verify everyone who’s using a service,” he said. “Once that verification mechanism comes in, it will be used for everything.”

He added that social media would likely only be the beginning. “I’m sure gaming and AI will be the first to be included after social media is,” he said. “I see that as the first step in a longer direction of bringing age verification to everyone’s usage of the internet and age verification for almost everything on the internet.”

One participant said governments increasingly prefer verification-based systems as policy solutions. Pahwa similarly referred to what he described as a broader “regulatory proclivity towards verification.”

“All age verification in India becomes Aadhaar verification”: A major concern during the discussion was how age-assurance systems would likely operate in India. “No, no, they want to do Aadhaar verification,” Pahwa said during one exchange. “Let’s be very clear. All age verification in India becomes Aadhaar verification.”

Another participant referred to a newly launched Aadhaar-linked application that allows selective disclosure through QR codes. “You don’t need to share your address. You don’t need to share your father’s name. You can just share your age,” the speaker said while explaining the system.

Pahwa rejected the broader mechanism itself. “I don’t want to share my ID. I don’t want to share my age. I don’t want to do this mechanism,” he responded. Another participant argued that the debate was focusing on the wrong problem entirely. “Identification is irrelevant to the problem,” the speaker said. “If you’re reducing parental responsibility to declare age truthfully and then taking away the agency to be responsible to the child beyond that, then I’m just going to lie about her age.”

“The privacy risks are extremely high”: Several participants questioned whether large-scale age-assurance systems could exist without creating significant privacy risks. A speaker pointed out that governments and regulators had already realised “the error rates are high” and “the privacy risks and other types of risks are extremely high.”

Another participant directly opposed facial recognition-based systems. “I would not be very comfortable with a hardware company, any kind of company or government for that matter, running facial recognition on my child,” the speaker said. “We all trade convenience for this,” they added. 

Another expert argued that internet access for children increasingly assumes constant observation. “Internet can be the most dangerous place to go without monitoring,” the participant said while advocating for co-viewing and supervision.

Anonymity and vulnerable users: Several speakers argued that anonymity online can function as a safety mechanism for vulnerable groups. One participant said queer children in conservative households often rely on online communities to access support, alternative viewpoints, and emotional safety. Another speaker referred to children in conflict-hit Manipur who depended on the internet after years of internet shutdowns and disruptions to schooling.

Pahwa argued that anonymity itself should be protected. “I am a proponent of anonymity,” he said. “It should be their choice whether they want to be anonymous or not, because coming out means identifying yourself.”

Another participant referred to research conducted after verifiable parental consent systems were introduced. “Around 60% kids said that they would rather not approach their parents when they face a challenge or an issue on the internet,” the speaker said. Instead, many children preferred turning to peers for help. The participant added that “that level of gap is something that does exist and that is something we have to contend with.”

Privacy by design instead of identity verification: Several participants argued that platform design interventions would be more effective than large-scale identity verification systems. Pahwa referred to the UK’s age-appropriate design code, which requires “default settings as high privacy,” “data minimisation,” switching “geolocation options off,” and turning “profiling off by default.”

Another participant warned that interface design itself can undermine privacy protections. “When you talk about actualising safety or actualising privacy or even facilitating agency, what can happen in the backend is actually washed off when it comes to the interface layer,” the speaker said while discussing deceptive design patterns.

Note: This discussion was organised with support from Meta and Snap. Community partners for the event included Pacta, Design Beku, and The Pranava Institute.

Read MediaNama’s whole coverage of this discussion here.

Also read

• The harms of social media: What is driving proposed age restrictions for children on the internet
• UK survey finds nearly a third of children said they bypassed age verification checks, over a quarter of parents let them
• Roblox makes facial age verification mandatory for children under 16 in Indonesia