Ireland’s Online Safety Code was published to set age assurance rules and regulate content for online video sharing platforms with their European headquarters in Ireland. The Association of Age Verification Providers (AVPA) is not impressed.

The media regulatory authority Coimisiún na Meán has published The 32-page code this week. The code sets out the rules for online platforms, which are different “according to their size and nature”, under the authority of the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act.

Age verification is mandatory under the code for video-sharing platforms that host “content that may affect the physical, mental or moral development of minors”. This is defined as “gratuitous or extreme pornography and violence,” which is collectively considered “adult video content.”

Age estimation is explicitly considered among the “effective age assurance measures” in the code. Beyond that, age assurance is not clearly defined, although self-declaration is not.

Platforms need to update their terms and conditions of service in several ways. Attempts to circumvent age-enforcement measures, such as using a VPN, will become grounds for denial of service.

The code also prohibits the uploading or sharing of certain types of videos on platforms and forces platforms to provide parental controls over who their children under 16 can share content with and for how long they can use the platform.

In the comments under a Post on LinkedIn from the regulator, the AVPA says it was “a shame that plans in the draft guidance to use age assurance to keep younger children off social media did not make it into the final regulations”, but notes that Ireland followed suit the path of regulators in several other jurisdictions in this regard.

AVPA notes that major platforms will still have to answer to the European Commission and therefore still have age assurance requirements. The group hopes that the code will introduce the same requirements more widely in future iterations.

The UK is moving closer to implementation

The UK is in the middle of a multi-year implementation of its online safety rules, and stakeholders are trying to understand its implications.

The only pornographer interviewed for the report warns that the cost of implementing age checks under UK entry rules will be onerous. Not everyone believes their claims.

A report on the potential impact of the Online Safety Act by Revealing Reality updates an earlier report from 2019 based on interviews conducted from March to June of last year. The potential impact considered is that on businesses, with the report providing an estimate of how many organizations are affected and an attempt to determine what their costs would be.

Online safety law changed between the time of those interviews and hers passage in September2023,

Only three Tier 3 organizations, which impose the most requirements, agreed to take part in the research, down from 11 in the 2019 version. In terms of general requirements for age assurance, most platforms believe their measures current ones are enough. A large gaming organization with 350 million accounts has estimated a significant cost to deploy technology from a third-party age assurance provider, and others have warned that users may respond to increased friction from age verification by turning to non-compliant websites and platforms.

The report also includes an account from a single porn provider. The unnamed company says that at 10 to 20 pence per age verification, the law’s requirements would increase the cost by £500,000 a month. The report helpfully notes that some age insurance providers offer checks starting at a penny per transaction.

AVPA responds to these “curious claims” in a Post on LinkedIn. The group notes that the same company claims a potential revenue loss of up to £1m a day, which translates into a monthly income of £30m if the discount is 100%. AVPA estimates the total cost of age insurance for the platform in question at between 0.35% and 1.66% per month, on an income of £30m.

Yotiin the meantime, provide a blog post on “Understanding Age Assurance in the Online Safety Act”, noting that Ofcom estimated that 100,000 online services could be subject to new rules. The post outlines the timeline of the changes, places the changes in the context of other regulations and explores how pornography providers, gaming companies and dating platforms will be affected by age verification requirements.

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age verification | AVPA | Ireland | lEGISLATION | Online Safety Act | regulations | social media | United Kingdom | Yoti