Preliminary Findings in Australian Age Assurance Trial Released

CANBERRA, Australia—A study funded by the Australian government to determine the efficacy and accuracy of age assurance technology published its preliminary findings Thursday, note several reports.

The Australian government authorized the so-called Age Assurance Technology Trial (AATT) in 2024 after the government of Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese chose not to immediately legislate the requirement for age verification for pornography and other digital platforms. Needs quickly changed in November 2024 when Parliament enacted broadly sweeping online child safety legislation that banned all social media use for minors under the age of 16 years.

The AATT was administered by the controversial United Kingdom-based not-for-profit called the Age Check Certification Scheme (ACCS) Limited and a testing partner called KJR. Per the preliminary findings, the technology of age assurance and verification for these functions, including face scans, was found to be "private, robust, and effective."

"The preliminary findings indicate that there are no significant technological barriers preventing the deployment of effective age assurance systems in Australia," explained Tony Allen, project director of the AATT. Allen said, "These solutions are technically feasible, can be integrated flexibly into existing services, and can support the safety and rights of children online. Our goal is to assess whether the technology works and can be deployed, not to make policy decisions about whether or how it should be used."

The Age Verification Providers Association (AVPA), a trade group also based in the United Kingdom, expressed joy at this "effective" result in the trial's initial findings.

AVPA is a trade group that represents companies, including ACCS, and major players such as Yoti, which is led by figures like Iain Corby, AVPA executive director, and Alastair Graham, co-chair of the association's board and founder and chief executive officer of AgeChecked Limited, also based in London. 

Graham explained, “This is the largest, government-sponsored, independent assessment of the sector's solutions, including real-world testing of a statistically representative sample of Australia's diverse population, and provides a strong endorsement of its capabilities.”

All of this praise downplays glaring concerns in the preliminary findings. The Guardian, The Conversation, and damning reporting by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) indicate key flaws in the technology they reviewed. For example, ABC found that age assurance facial scans that would be used to determine a minor's age as to whether they may access social media guessed that some under-18s could pass as 37 years of age. The test subject in that case was a white, 16-year-old boy. 

ABC's reporting also revealed that the facial scans for that boy, named Andy, also misidentified his age as 19, 26 and 23 years old. 

Lisa M. Given, a professor of information sciences at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University), wrote for The Conversation on the ongoing tests of age verification and assurance technology at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), under the U.S. Department of Commerce, finding disputes in accuracy.

Given references the Washington-based R Street Institute, highlighting how such studies “fail significantly when attempting to differentiate minors." Given was interviewed by ABC News, also indicating that she feels that age assurance technology and a total ban on under-16s in Australia's context would likely fail.

Given said, "We are going to see a messy situation emerging immediately where people will have what they call false positives, false negatives." Another review of available technology in 2024 by the Open Technology Institute (OTI) at New America, a left-leaning think tank, found that age verification and assurance is not effective at this point.