[telecom] Verifying Ages Online Is a Daunting Task, Even for Experts

Verifying Ages Online Is a Daunting Task, Even for Experts

By NICOLE PERLROTH June 17, 2012

SAN FRANCISCO - Just how hard can it be to verify the age of a person online?

After all, privacy experts have been complaining for years about how much advertisers know about people who use the Internet.

The answer, it turns out, is very hard. Despite attempts by privacy advocates, academics, law enforcement officials, technologists and advertisers to determine a person's age on the Internet, the reality is that, online, it is extremely difficult to tell whether someone is an 11-year-old girl or a 45-year-old man.

The question arose last week after Skout, a mobile social networking app, discovered that, within two weeks, three adults had masqueraded as teenagers in its forum for 13- to 17-year-olds. In three separate incidents, they contacted children and, the police say, sexually assaulted them.

In response, Skout suspended its app for minors, appointed a task force of security specialists to investigate and find solutions and said it would not resume the service until it could find a better way to vet users' ages online.

Skout said it had vetted its users ages through Facebook, which officially prohibits members under 13, but has acknowledged that children find ways to enter. Facebook said recently that it was experimenting with age verification tools that would allow people younger than 13 to join.

The resounding response from those who have studied age verification technologies, and, in some cases, put them in place, has been: good luck.

The problem is that everyone - not only sex offenders - has an incentive to lie. Children want to enter Web sites and forums where their older peers are.

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Monty Solomon
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