Publications
The “Parents Over Platforms Act” Has Gotten Its Name Backwards
The Parents Over Platforms Act was named backwards. It claims to put parents in control. The irony is that the platforms this proposed US Federal bill targets need do almost nothing new to comply with it, leaving parents no better off than today — while the Big Tech...
The EU is offering a free government key to access the Internet
The European Union's age verification 'app' (aka 'blueprint') is beginning to attract attention, and with that scrutiny has come a degree of confusion about what it is, what it does and how it fits into the wider age assurance ecosystem. It is worth setting out the...
AI needs more than Age Inference to protect kids
AI needs more than Age Inference to protect kids. Every major AI assistant available to the public today primarily relies on inference and self-attestation to assess whether a user might be a minor (and this is also the initial strategy being adopted by most social...
AUSTRALIA: Lessons Learned from the implementation of the Social Media Minimum Age Act
The Age Verification Providers Association has produced a report, based on discussions with its members, examining the key lessons learned from the large-scale implementation of “Reasonable Steps” to prevent users under 16 from having social media accounts in...
AUSTRALIA: The problem is not age assurance technology – it is that social media platforms are not doing enough checks
Melbourne 22 April 2026 – The Age Verification Providers Association (AVPA), the global trade body for providers of age assurance technology, has today published a new report on the early implementation of Australia’s Social Media Minimum Age regime, concluding that...
AVPA speaks to LBC’s Tom Swarbrick about Digital ID
We spoke to Tom Swarbrick of LBC about the UK government's proposals for digital ID. Tom Swarbrick: I’m at a loss to understand what this is for, this digital ID. What is it designed to do? In effect, what this will turn into is an app that links you to various bits...
AVPA’s response to CDT, EPIC and Fairplay’s letter to the FTC about COPPA
A recent letter to the Federal Trade Commission from Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and Fairplay raises a number of concerns about its COPPA Enforcement Policy Statement on age assurance. It is a thoughtful...
AVPA responds to criticisms from computer scientists
We set out below a short response to the main arguments put forward in a “Joint statement of security and privacy scientists and researchers on Age Assurance” signed by over 400 academics. We welcome this new level of interest in the field but their letter raises...
AVPA corrects the record with US House Committee on Energy and Commerce
We have submitted a letter to the US House Committee on Energy and Commerce in response to a letter submitted by Americans for Prosperity, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and the Software & Information Industry Association. [embeddoc...
Federal Trade Commission Workshop summaries
Below are summaries of the presentations and panel's from last week's FTC workshop. (Please note these have been in part machine-generated, so you are advised to refer to the video of the full proceedings to confirm exactly what was said by any speaker) which is...
The changing landscape of age assurance – George Billinge
21 May 2024 | DefAI Project blog by George Billinge In recent months, the global conversation has heated up. The Australian government has announced significant funding towards a trial of age verification, as part of a suite of measures to tackle violence against...