An age verification system, also known as an age gate, is a technical protection measure used to restrict access to

digital content Digital content is any content that exists in the form of digital data. Also known as digital media, digital content is stored on digital or analog storage in specific formats. Forms of digital content include information that is digitally broad ...

from those who are not appropriately-aged. These systems are used primarily to restrict access to content classified (either voluntarily or by local laws) as being inappropriate for users under a specific age, such as

alcohol Alcohol most commonly refers to: * Alcohol (chemistry), an organic compound in which a hydroxyl group is bound to a carbon atom * Alcohol (drug), an intoxicant found in alcoholic drinks Alcohol may also refer to: Chemicals * Ethanol, one of sev ...

and

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

advertising,

internet pornography Internet pornography is any pornography that is accessible over the internet, primarily via websites, FTP servers peer-to-peer file sharing, or Usenet newsgroups. The availability of widespread public access to the World Wide Web in late 1990s ...

or other forms of adult-oriented content,

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This feedba ...

s with objectionable content, or to remain in compliance with online privacy laws that regulate the collection of personal information from minors (such as COPPA in the United States).

Methods

Birth date

The most basic form of age verification is to ask users to input their date of birth on a form. However, this depends on an

honor system An honor system or honesty system is a philosophical way of running a variety of endeavors based on trust, honor, and honesty. Something that operates under the rule of the "honor system" is usually something that does not have strictly enf ...

that assumes the validity of the end user (which can be a minor who fraudulently inserts a valid date that meets the age criteria, rather than their own), and has thus been described as ineffective.

Credit card verification

More sophisticated age verification systems require users to provide

credit card A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the ...

information. However, this depends on an assumption that the vast majority of credit card holders are adults, because U.S. credit card companies did not originally issue cards to minors. Additionally, a minor may still attempt to obtain their parent's credit card information, or

defraud In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compensa ...

users into divulging their

credit card number A payment card number, primary account number (PAN), or simply a card number, is the card identifier found on payment cards, such as credit cards and debit cards, as well as stored-value cards, gift cards and other similar cards. In some situati ...

to an individual to use for their own purposes, defeating the stated purpose of the system. In 2005,

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pleaded guilty to charges of credit card fraud; one of his schemes had involved using credit card-based age verification systems to charge users for "free" tours of adult entertainment websites.

Federated identification

MindGeek MindGeek (formerly Manwin) is a Luxembourg-based, privately held company with Canada as its center of operations that primarily focuses on pornography. It is owned by Feras Antoon, Bernd Bergmair (Bernard Bergemar), David Marmorstein, and — m ...

, a major operator of porn websites, operates an age verification provider known as AgeID. First introduced in Germany in 2015, it uses third-party providers to authenticate the user's age, and a

single sign-on Single sign-on (SSO) is an authentication scheme that allows a user to log in with a single ID to any of several related, yet independent, software systems. True single sign-on allows the user to log in once and access services without re-enterin ...

model that allows the verified identity to be shared across any participating website.

Face recognition

The Australian government has proposed the use of facial recognition against official identification photos.

Knowledge

The adult-oriented video game franchise '' Leisure Suit Larry'' presented players with trivia questions that, in the opinion of franchise creator Al Lowe, a child would not know the answer to (such as, for example, "All politicians are: a. hard-working, b. honest, c. on the public payroll"), in order to launch the game (although this can be bypassed with a keyboard shortcut).

Legal mandates

Germany

In Germany age verification systems are mandated by the "Jugendmedienschutz-Staatsvertrag" which was introduced in September 2002. The institution in charge KJM considers only systems equivalent to face-to-face verification as sufficient for age verification.

United Kingdom

With the passing of the Digital Economy Act 2017, the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

passed a law containing a legal mandate on the provision of age verification. Under the act, websites that publish pornography on a commercial basis would have been required to implement a "robust" age verification system. The

British Board of Film Classification The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC, previously the British Board of Film Censors) is a non-governmental organisation founded by the British film industry in 1912 and responsible for the national classification and censorship of ...

(BBFC) was charged with enforcing this legislation. After a series of setbacks, the planned scheme was eventually abandoned in 2019. While the UK government abandoned this legislation, age verification continues to be monitored and enforced by regulatory bodies including Ofcom and the ICO. Other standards are emerging for age assurance systems, such as PAS1296:2018. The ISO standard for age assurance systems (PWI 7732) is also being developed by the Age Check Certificate Scheme, the Age Verification Providers’ Association, and other Conformity Assessment Bodies.

China Mainland Region (中國大陸地區）

Main article :

Real-name system A real-name system is a system in which users can register an account on a blog, website or bulletin board system using their legal name. Users are required to provide identification credentials and their legal name. A public pseudonym can also ...

The age verification system in China, also known as the "real name system" (實名認證), was created by the mainland Chinese government. The intended aim of this system in regards to the video game industry is to protect minors from

video game addiction Video game addiction (VGA), also known as gaming disorder or internet gaming disorder, is generally defined as the problematic, compulsive use of video games that results in significant impairment to an individual's ability to function in vario ...

References

{{Reflist, 30em Identity documents Censorship of pornography

Age verification An age verification system, also known as an age gate, is a technical protection measure used to restrict access to digital content from those who are not appropriately-aged. These systems are used primarily to restrict access to content classifie ...

Internet censorship