Age Verification: Not Too Effective As Yet
May 15, 2026
Attempts in the United Kingdom to keep children off mature Internet content appear to be falling short of the mark. Allegedly a third of UK children can fool the age verification gates says The Independent in “Some Children Are Drawing On Fake Moustaches To Bypass Online Age Checks, Report Finds.” (Do you remember the really smart person in your sixth grade class who could do magic with his computer or mobile phone. How long did it take that person to provide the info needed to access certain content or get into a school system to change a grade? My recollection is that Sally Wu required minutes and the information diffused faster than the teacher could say, “Put away your mobile.”) Kids are not too smart in some ways, but administrative hurdles seem to cause their motivation and brain cells to kick into another gear. “You can’t do that” is processed as “Just wait.”
Kids want to access social media platforms, gaming websites, and porn outlets so they’re using fake facial hair, legal birthdates, and anything else required to break to through safety barriers. In the UK, its Online Safety Act is banging into the reality of computer native kids and people like my classmate Sally Wu when she was 11 years old.
Here are some data to consider:
- The report from online safety organisation Internet Matters found around half of children said they had recently been asked to verify their age on a social media or gaming platform.
- From a sample of 1,000 UK children, 46 per cent said they believed age checks are easy to bypass, while 32 per cent admitted to having done so.
- Researchers also found 49 per cent of children said they had encountered harmful content online recently.”
The report also said that the Online Safety Act is making important changes to protect kids, but it called out the government to hold mature websites accountable. The government needs to ensure that legislation is enforced, especially the penalties for violating the Online Safety Act.
Will it happen? Maybe? The UK government has faced its own computer challenges. I won’t talk about the postal service’s systems. It is a hoot as well. Several observations:
First, kids are easily under estimated.
Second, banning something inspires kids to find a way around the barrier.
Third, kids react quickly. Make a change to age verification, and the kids like Sally are on it.
Net net: A failure to require age verification decades ago has created today’s challenge. The cat-and-mouse game is afoot.
Whitney Grace, May 15, 2026
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