Thirteen or 18 they can do, but Facebook owner Meta has disclosed it doesn’t know quite how it will meet Australia’s incoming social media age ban for 16-year-olds.
The query was raised in a parliamentary committee for search engine services and the social media minimum age obligation, with regional policy director Mia Garlick speaking of “unique technical hurdles”.
She said the government’s legislation – which bars under-16s from accessing platforms from December 10 – created “significant new engineering and age assurance challenges”.
She said Meta’s systems were designed around the “existing milestones” of 13 as the minimum age for social media access in global age verification frameworks, and 18 marking legal adulthood. “Sixteen is a globally novel age boundary that presents significant new engineering and age assurance challenges,” she told the committee.
Garlick cited the final report of the Age Assurance Technology Trial – commissioned by the federal government – which found that distinguishing between users aged 13 and 16 was inherently less reliable, and that there were “greater challenges” with age estimation technologies.
She said a better way might be for app stores and operating systems to confirm age. Meta’s rollout of Teen Accounts across Instagram, Facebook and Messenger brought built-in protections that limit “who can contact teens, the content they see, and the time they spend online”. Meta was also using AI to identify users who may be under 18, “even though they may have listed an adult birthday”.