Tech Giants Implement Age Assurance as Canada Bans Social Media for Under-16s

Canada has taken a significant step forward in banning social media for kids under 16. To comply, tech companies are rolling out age assurance technology to verify users' ages.

Google's approach uses AI to analyze factors such as search queries and YouTube video views to estimate user age. Users identified as underage receive additional protections on their accounts, including content restrictions and personalized ad disablement.

Mistakenly identifying an adult as under 18 can be corrected using government ID or a selfie analyzed by PrivateID, which deletes the image and doesn't retain the user's precise age.

Meta uses AI to analyze profiles for contextual clues like birthday celebrations or school grades. If it suspects an account belongs to someone underage, it will deactivate it unless proof of age is provided through its verification process.