YouTube Will Test AI-Based Age Verification, Automatically Restrict Content For Minors

YouTube is testing a new system for their United States-based users which would use artificial intelligence (AI) to determine a user’s age and set up restrictions accordingly.

This “age estimation model” was rolled out to a “small set of users” on Wednesday, per reports, and is aimed at protecting children from harmful content. The company said the AI will not rely on the birth date entered on the account, but will use other methods to determine the user’s age, per Associated Press.

YouTube noted that users will have an option to override that estimation if they believe it’s made an error, and people will “have the option to verify your age (through government ID, selfie or a credit card) if you believe our age estimation model is incorrect.”

The system only works for users who are logged in.

James Beser, senior director of product management for YouTube’s youth products, wrote in a blog post that the move was made “so that teens are treated as teens and adults as adults.”

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“This technology will allow us to infer a user’s age and then use that signal, regardless of the birthday in the account, to deliver our age-appropriate product experiences and protection,” Beser wrote, noting that this method has already been used in other countries “for some time” and is working well.

Protections put in place would be similar to when a user inputs a birthday showing them to be minor.

This includes showing only non-personalized ads, enabling “digital wellbeing” tools such as “take a break” and bedtime reminders by default, showing reminders about privacy when uploading a video or commenting publicly, minimizing recommendations of videos with content that could be “problematic if viewed in repetition,” and blocking access to age-restricted video explicitly not recommended for minors.