For those who think a fake mustache is not fooling anybody, think again.
Since 2023, the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act has tasked social media and search engine companies with protecting young users by restricting harmful content and even resorting to age verification to access platforms.
But unsurprisingly, the tech-savvy young generation is already developing ingenuous ways to jump through the extra sets of hoops.
A recent study by Internet Matters, a British child online safety organization, found that around one-third of children in the UK have bypassed safety measures like age verification.
The safeguard often requires users to take a selfie or show a valid ID to verify their age.
“I did catch my son using an eyebrow pencil to draw a mustache on his face, and it verified him as 15 years old,” an anonymous mother of a 12-year-old boy told Internet Matters.
“I have helped my son get around them”
The survey polled 1,000 children and their parents, with 46% of those surveyed believing that age checks are easy to bypass.
