A British internet safety nonprofit has found that kids are outwitting online age verification systems in some surprisingly low-tech ways, including drawing fake mustaches on their faces. Internet Matters surveyed 1,270 children ages 9 to 16 in the U.K. and found that about a third had managed to bypass age checks online in just the past two months, and 46 percent said the checks are easy to get around. One mother told researchers she caught her 12-year-old using an eyebrow pencil to draw a mustache, and the facial age-estimation tool verified him as 15.
Other methods kids reported using included entering fake birthdates, using someone else’s ID, pointing webcams at video game characters with realistic faces, and simply making unusual expressions. A quarter of parents said they had allowed their children to bypass age checks, and 17-percent had actively helped them do it. The report comes as the U.K.’s Online Safety Act, which took effect last summer, pushes platforms to tighten age-based restrictions. No word on whether the “two kids in a trenchcoat” method’s been tried yet.
Source: Digital Trends
