The evidence is increasingly clear that social media is harming young people. As a result, both states and the federal government are considering strategies to better protect kids online. The effectiveness of any policy solution, whether raising the age of social media or requiring parental consent, among others, will hinge on effective age-verification—the ability to determine if a user is above a certain age threshold in order to keep underage individuals from access. This paper examines that topic for policymakers.
In developing age-verification legislation or policy, lawmakers will have to formulate answers to two central questions:
- What information needs to be collected for age verification purposes?
- What entity will be tasked with actually performing the age verification and handling the associated personal data?
The answers to these two questions will necessarily form the core of any age-verification strategy. And each can be answered in a number of different ways, as this policy memo will discuss. Once a core framework has been decided upon, other relevant considerations, like possible enforcement mechanisms, can then be incorporated.
