Across the country, at both the state and federal levels, policymakers have been advancing proposals in the name of keeping kids safe online. Policymakers often have the largest Internet companies in mind, but their proposals will impact much broader swaths of the Internet. Earlier this year, Engine released More than just a number: How determining user age impacts startups, a report exploring how their ideas could make life harder—and more expensive—for startups that do (or even might) interact with young users.
The laws, proposed regulations, and draft legislation policymakers are considering often—either explicitly or in practice—require startups to determine the ages of the users that access their services. To build on our report and learn more about the impact of these requirements, we spoke with a dozen stakeholders and subject matter experts, including startup founders, consultants to startups, and age verification and estimation providers. We learned that, for startups, requirements to determine user age carry notable tradeoffs and can eat away at limited budgets, increase cybersecurity risks, and diminish user experience.
The direct and indirect costs of determining user age are more than just a number—they will make it harder for startups to compete. While so much of the policy conversations about kids’ safety happening at every level of government are driven by concerns about large companies, policymakers need to remember that the rules they write will impact the entire Internet ecosystem, including the startups that want to be good stewards of their users’ data and already have to be responsive to their users’ needs and concerns.
It is critical that startups and policymakers alike understand the implications of age verification requirements for them and the businesses they represent. To help policymakers better understand what these issues mean for startups and their users, we’re releasing an updated version of the report, one-pager, and video explainers of the impacts of age verification and the policy proposals that prompt it.
