According to a statistical report from the past couple of years, 94% of the humans within the age range from 3 to 18 years have access to the internet in their homes. The percentage is increasing rapidly with every passing day as everything is prone to digitization. The number of adult websites and harmful content is also increasing in parallel to technological advancement.
Considering this high-profile issue, a wide range of organizations around the globe are incorporating age verification checks and solutions so that minors of the nations are protected from consuming harmful content. Many countries are also enforming age verification mechanisms for adult websites as it’s a matter of digital sovereignty.
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What Is The Significance of Age Verification?
Without the mechanism of age verification, companies and organizations cannot ensure that is their services, products or content is beneficial for their end-user or not. Staying safe online is very much important for children to make the internet and this virtual world a safe and secure place.
The trend of online education is also rising during this COVID-19 pandemic, providing the opportunity for children to spend hours and hours on the internet. This way, they can either use the internet for their knowledge and education, or they can misuse it by spending time on adult websites. Online Age verification solutions ensure that only adults can access such websites.
Age verification can not only be used to prevent access of minors to misleading and adult-orientated websites but also age verification is essential in the e-gaming industry, online gambling platforms, online drug and tobacco stores, e-cigarettes, and so on.
Integrating Age Authentication With ID Verification
With the advent of technological advancements, the number of misusers and fraudulent activities is also increasing day after day, identity verification solutions are playing a significant and crucial role to combat misleaders. Identity verification ensures that the product or service is in the right hands and is consumed by the correct end-user.
Identity verification involves numerous use-cases which include 2-factor authentication, biometric authentication, consent verification, address verification, document verification, and the most important one, age verification. Age verification is usually done during the process of document verification, where the user’s data is extracted and verified using a government-issued ID card, driving license, or passport. Providing age-restricted services is important to limit under-age access for the safety of minors all over the internet especially during this pandemic of COVID-19 when children spend most of their time in cyberspace.
Law Enforcement For Child’s Safety
Educational institutions are adopting the method of online classes due to this pandemic of COVID-19. To make the internet the safest place for children, the United Kingdom nation introduced a law called the Digital Economy Act, which includes the measure of protecting the nation’s children from content that is harmful to them or which is not suitable for their age group. The act enforces that it is mandatory for the websites having one-third of their content misleading or pornographic to verify the age of the user.
There also exist many other countries that are incorporating such kinds of acts and laws to provide a better environment for their minors on the internet. The French parliament in Paris agreed upon the implementation of an age verification service for pornography websites. Also, Germany introduces a more formal process to verify the age of customers. In that process, customers are asked to submit photos or videos of themselves by holding an ID card issued by the government. That way, the age is verified using government-issued identity cards.
Growth In Age Verification By 2025
The increasing rate in the number of scams in today’s virtual world needs better online verification systems. According to the study, there is a tremendous increment in technological advancement and age verification applications in the upcoming years, at least till 2025. The market growth in age verification is based on various different factors such as supply chain analysis, Porte five support analysis, price analysis, etc.
It is also deeply analyzed in this report that there exist many regions where there is a lack of age verification online solutions, especially in social media platforms. Accessing gambling sites, alcohol, and dating and adult websites is not a big deal for minors. They can simply add false age credentials in the form while signing up or logging in. Taking that under consideration, organizations are adopting much more advanced technologies and outreaching new strategies to improve identity verification and age authentication solutions.
This all boils down to…
Age verification plays a vital role in this digital world to protect children from harmful content. The global market of age verification solutions is facing rapid growth for the past couple of years and also in the upcoming years to prevent the access of minors to unsuitable or porn websites. Moreover, countries all around the globe are enforcing controversial age verification mechanisms for adult websites to protect minors of their nation, which has been a high-profile issue in this modern, innovative, and virtual world.
