Australia warns social media platforms against age verification for all ahead of ban on children
Melbourne (AP): Australian authorities said Tuesday that social media platforms should not demand age verification for all account holders starting from December, when a ban on children under 16 having accounts goes into effect in the country.
The government released guidelines on how platforms such as TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X and Instagram should apply the world's first ban on children using social media from December 10. It says verifying the ages of all account holders would be unreasonable.
“We think it would be unreasonable if platforms reverified everyone's age,” said Australia's eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, who drafted the guidelines. Her use of the word “reverified" suggested the platforms usually already had sufficient data to verify a user was older than 16.
She said the platforms have “targeting technology” to focus on those under 16.
"They can target us with deadly precision when it comes to advertising. Certainly they can do this around the age of a child,” she added.
Australia's Parliament enacted the ban last year, giving the platforms a year to work out its implementation. The platforms face fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars (USD33 million) for systemic failures to prevent children younger than 16 from holding accounts.
Critics of the legislation fear that banning young children from social media will impact the privacy of all users who must establish they are older than 16.
Inman Grant said claims the ban would see every Australian account holder subjected to age verification as a “scare tactic.”
Communications Minister Anika Wells said the government seeks to keep platform users' data as private as possible.
“These social media platforms know an awful lot about us" already, Wells said. "If you have been on, for example, Facebook since 2009, then they know you are over 16. There is no need to verify.”
Wells and Inman Grant will travel to the United States next week to discuss the guidelines with the platforms' owners.
Inman Grant said the platforms would need to demonstrate to her agency that they were taking “reasonable steps” to exclude children younger than 16.
“We don't expect that every under-16 account is magically going to disappear on December 10,” Inman Grant said. "What we will be looking at is systemic failures to apply the technologies, policies and processes.”
Melbourne's RMIT University expert on information sciences Lisa Given told Australian Broadcasting Corp. that the government's approach acknowledges that age verification technologies make errors.
“It's going to be up to each of the platforms to determine how they're going to comply and it will be interesting to see if they test the limits of the definition of reasonable steps,'” Given said.
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SC to hear on May 4 PIL seeking stringent guidelines for issuing Aadhaar to adolescents, adults
New Delhi (PTI): The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on Monday a plea seeking a direction to the Unique Identification Authority of India to issue new Aadhaar cards only to citizens up to the age of six years, and frame stringent guidelines for its issuance to adolescents and adults to stop infiltrators from masquerading as Indian citizens.
As per the apex court's causelist of May 4, the plea would come up for hearing before a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi.
The Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by lawyer Ashwini Upadhyay has also sought a direction to the authorities to install display boards at common service centres stating that the 12-digit unique identification number is only a "proof of identity" and not a proof of citizenship, address or date of birth.
Besides all the states and Union Territories, the plea has made the UIDAI -- which is the authority that issues Aadhaar -- and the Union ministries of home, law and justice, and electronics and information technology as parties.
The plea, filed through advocate Ashwani Dubey, said Aadhaar, originally intended as a proof of identity, has increasingly become a "foundational document" enabling individuals to obtain other identification documents, such as ration cards, domicile certificates and voter identity cards.
"The UIDAI has issued 144 crore Aadhaar and 99 percent Indians have been enrolled. Therefore, the petitioner is filing this writ petition as a PIL under Article 32, seeking a direction to UIDAI to issue new Aadhaar to children only and frame new stringent guidelines for adolescents and adults, so as to stop infiltrators from getting it and masquerading as Indian citizens," the plea said.
It said the need to file the plea arose when the petitioner came to know the manner in which infiltrators are able to procure Aadhaar through a verification process that is weak and can be easily manipulated.
"Foreigners apply for Aadhaar under the 'foreign' category. But infiltrators apply for Aadhaar under the 'Indian citizen' category and get it easily made. Thereafter, they obtain a ration card, birth and domicile certificate, driving licence, et cetera, essentially becoming indistinguishable from Indian citizens…," it said.
Besides seeking other directions, the plea has raised legal questions, including whether the Aadhaar Act 2016 has become "temporally unreasonable" for failing to keep up with the legislative intent of distinguishing foreigners from Indian citizens.
It said the alleged misuse of Aadhaar undermines targeted welfare delivery and leads to diversion of public resources.
