{"id":929930,"date":"2026-08-27T06:14:57","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T11:14:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/27\/metas-18b-child-safety-deal-hinges-on-age-verification-tech-that-doesnt-work-well\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T06:14:57","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T11:14:57","slug":"metas-18b-child-safety-deal-hinges-on-age-verification-tech-that-doesnt-work-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/27\/metas-18b-child-safety-deal-hinges-on-age-verification-tech-that-doesnt-work-well\/","title":{"rendered":"Meta\u2019s $18B child-safety deal hinges on age-verification tech that doesn\u2019t work well"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Meta reached an $18 billion settlement<\/a> on Wednesday over a lawsuit brought by 29 U.S. states concerning children\u2019s safety. The settlement is historic in scale as Meta agrees with a group of 52 attorneys general to implement sweeping changes<\/a> to how minors use Instagram and Facebook.<\/p>\n

The settlement \u201cgives the AGs what they want, which is the political story that they\u2019ve extracted a huge amount of benefit for the public from this settlement, including the platform changes,\u201d Jessica Nall<\/a>, a technology litigator at Withers, told TechCrunch. But Nall noted the settlement\u2019s real-dollar impact is softer than the headline number suggests. \u201cThe fact that it\u2019s being paid over 10 years really does blunt the financial impact of the large number, especially compared to Meta\u2019s annual revenue\u00a0\u2026 We\u2019re talking about one of these tech companies where their annual revenue is larger than the GDP of most European countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, Meta reported more than $200 billion in total revenue in 2025, which puts the $18 billion price tag in perspective. But the bigger story here isn\u2019t the dollar amount. It\u2019s what Meta now has to build: the most detailed child-safety rules any major platform has agreed to, resting on age-verification technology that still doesn\u2019t work particularly well.<\/p>\n

Meta hasn\u2019t admitted wrongdoing, even as it settles allegations that it intentionally designed its platforms to keep children hooked \u2014 a common tactic for companies looking to avoid a jury trial, where the risk of a worse outcome is higher. A ruling against Meta could also have jeopardized the legal protections that allow social platforms to escape liability for what users post.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s wise of them to try to get out of it, especially without a legal finding against them on any of the First Amendment issues and the Section 230<\/a> issues, which are still alive,\u201d Nall said. \u201cThat could be existential, potentially, not just for Meta but for every tech company that has a product that engages with users, which is almost all of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meta\u2019s settlement also reignites ongoing concern over age-verification measures that are intended to protect children online but can, in practice, create new privacy risks for both kids and adults.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a classic debate around prioritizing safety over privacy,\u201d Dr. Alexis Ingber<\/a>, a professor of communications at Syracuse University, told TechCrunch. \u201cThe perspective is, if we want to keep children safe on Meta platforms, here are all the design things we\u2019re gonna have to do, but we\u2019re gonna have to also do this age verification thing that\u2019s gonna take away from people\u2019s data privacy and will introduce these new data privacy concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the settlement\u2019s terms, Meta has proposed a list of design changes<\/a>, including a default two-hour daily screen-time limit for app use, plus prompts that appear every 15 minutes to \u201cencourage intentional use.\u201d Accounts that Meta identifies as belonging to minors will also default to being blocked from Meta apps overnight (between midnight and 6 a.m.) and will have notifications muted during school hours (8 a.m. to 3 p.m.). By default, teens won\u2019t be able to see \u201clike\u201d counts on their own posts or others\u2019, among other changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe design changes that were proposed in the settlement seem great on paper, but they are all reliant upon successful, effective, and unbiased age verification technology,\u201d Dr. Ingber said. \u201cYou need to be able to identify that that\u2019s a child versus an adult, and the way that we do that right now is not really effective\u00a0\u2026 I\u2019m very curious to see how Meta is going to move forward with trying to do that, given that by and large, these technologies have failed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Age-verification technology has evolved well beyond clicking \u201cYes, I am 21\u201d on a liquor website. Companies now typically verify age through biometric scans (like a selfie), government ID checks, or analysis of behavioral patterns, and each comes with its own flaws. Behavioral analysis can misjudge adults as minors or vice versa, while ID and biometric checks require kids, and adults, to hand sensitive documents over to a third party just to use an app.<\/p>\n

Some users also don\u2019t trust platforms to roll out age-verification responsibly. Discord learned this firsthand when it tried to implement global age verification earlier this year and had to delay the rollout<\/a> after significant user backlash.<\/p>\n

Not everyone shares that pessimism, though. \u201cI 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 [companies] can provide or implement age assurance technologies,\u201d Philip Yannella, co-chair of the privacy and data security group at law firm Blank Rome, told TechCrunch. \u201cI\u2019m not going to say they won\u2019t have potential privacy issues, but they could greatly lessen the privacy issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yannella added that companies don\u2019t need to store users\u2019 personal information to verify their age.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are ways you can verify someone\u2019s age, create a token that would signal that this particular IP is associated with someone who\u2019s below the age of 13, below the age of 16, whatever it is, but discard the personal information,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Still, Ingber and other experts caution that even if companies don\u2019t 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\u2019t be changed. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, as Meta and the 52 state attorneys general finalize these guidelines \u2014 which Meta must follow for the next 10 years \u2014 the company is framing the settlement not as a concession, but as proof that it\u2019s a leader in children\u2019s online safety. Meta is now running full-page newspaper ads<\/a> 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\u2019s settlement payment depends on whether TikTok and YouTube also comply with these guidelines.<\/p>\n

While Ingber worries that Meta and other companies won\u2019t be able to meet these commitments without relying on potentially insecure verification mechanisms, she sees the settlement as evidence of a bigger cultural shift.<\/p>\n

\u201cMeta has extraordinary power to create norms through its platform design,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you change the way that the platform is designed, you can set new norms. You can make things better.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission<\/a>. This doesn\u2019t affect our editorial independence.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Amanda Silberling<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meta reached an $18 billion settlement on Wednesday over a lawsuit brought by 29 U.S. states concerning children\u2019s safety. The settlement is historic in scale as Meta agrees with a group of 52 attorneys general to implement sweeping changes to how minors use Instagram and Facebook. The settlement \u201cgives the AGs what they want, which<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":929931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[151997,97758,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-929930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-child-safety","category-metas","category-technology"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=929930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/929931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=929930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=929930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=929930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}