Meta’s $18B child-safety deal hinges on age verification tech that doesn’t work well

Not everyone shares that pessimism, though. “I think the technology has evolved quite a bit in the last few years since these concerns started coming up, and I do think there are ways that can provide or implement age assurance technologies,” Philip Yannella, co-chair of the privacy and data security group at law firm Blank Rome, told TechCrunch. “I’m not going to say they won’t have potential privacy issues, but they could greatly lessen the privacy issues.”

Yannella added that companies don’t need to store users’ personal information to verify their age.

“There are ways you can verify someone’s age, create a token that would signal that this particular IP is associated with someone who’s below the age of 13, below the age of 16, whatever it is, but discard the personal information,” he said.

Still, Ingber and other experts caution that even if companies don’t retain this data, simply transmitting sensitive identity information online carries its own privacy risk. A breach of ID scans or facial biometric data tied to minors creates the risk of identity theft, and unlike a password, a leaked face or fingerprint can’t be changed.

Meanwhile, as Meta and the 52 state attorneys general finalize these guidelines — which Meta must follow for the next 10 years — the company is framing the settlement not as a concession, but as proof that it’s a leader in children’s online safety. Meta is now running full-page newspaper ads calling on TikTok and YouTube to adopt similar design changes, without mentioning that its own adoption came as part of a legal settlement. Under the agreement, roughly 30% of Meta’s settlement payment depends on whether TikTok and YouTube also comply with these guidelines.

While Ingber worries that Meta and other companies won’t be able to meet these commitments without relying on potentially insecure verification mechanisms, she sees the settlement as evidence of a bigger cultural shift.

“Meta has extraordinary power to create norms through its platform design,” she said. “If you change the way that the platform is designed, you can set new norms. You can make things better.”