Children’s rights and online age assurance systems: The way forward
Livingstone, S; Nair, A; Van der Hof, S; et al.Stoilova, M; Caglar, C
Date: 2024
Article
Journal
The International Journal of Children's Rights
Publisher
Brill Academic Publishers
Abstract
Age assurance is a way to prevent children accessing content, products or services that are
potentially harmful to them, ranging from using gambling services or buying alcohol or tobacco
or, increasingly, accessing certain products and services online. Now that children’s lives are
mediated by digital technologies, policymakers are ...
Age assurance is a way to prevent children accessing content, products or services that are
potentially harmful to them, ranging from using gambling services or buying alcohol or tobacco
or, increasingly, accessing certain products and services online. Now that children’s lives are
mediated by digital technologies, policymakers are deliberating over the legal, technical and
practical challenges. These have been little examined from the perspective of children’s rights.
By combining legal and social research methods, this article examines the legal requirements
for age assurance in Europe, assesses compliance by companies and reveals the consequences
for family life. In law and practice, we show that age assurance is often ineffective in protecting
children from online risk of harm. Further, it risks children’s other rights - to discrimination,
privacy, to be heard, and their civil rights and freedoms, and remedy. We identify promising
directions, focusing on European policy, regulators and civil society actors.
Law School
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
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