Age Verification, Estimation, Assurance, Oh My! A Guide to the Terminology

"If you've been following the wave of age-gating laws sweeping across the country and , you've probably noticed that lawmakers, tech companies, and advocates all seem to be using different terms for what sounds like the same thing. Age verification, age assurance, age estimation, age gating-they get thrown around interchangeably, but they technically mean different things. And those differences matter a lot when we're talking about your rights, your privacy, your data, and who gets to access information online."

"So let's clear up the confusion. Here's your guide to the terminology that's shaping these laws, and why you should care about the distinctions. Age gating refers to age-based restrictions on access to online services. Age gating can be required by law or voluntarily imposed as a corporate decision. Age gating does not necessarily refer to any specific technology or manner of enforcement for estimating or verifying a user's age. It simply refers to the fact that a restriction exists. Think of it as the concept of "you must be this old to enter" without getting into the details of how they're checking."

"Think of as the catch-all category. It covers any method an online service uses to figure out how old you are with age assurancesome level of confidence. That's intentionally vague, because age assurance includes everything from the most basic check-the-box systems to full-blown government ID scanning."

"When a company or lawmaker talks about "age assurance," they're not being specific about they're determining your age-just that they're trying to. For decades, the internet operated on a "self-attestation" system where you checked a box saying you were 18, and that was it. These new age-verification laws are specifically designed to replace that system. When lawmakers say they want "robust age assurance," what they really mean"

Age gating denotes age-based restrictions on access to online services and can be mandated by law or adopted voluntarily by companies. Age assurance is a broad category that encompasses any method used to determine a user's age, ranging from simple self-attestation checkboxes to full government ID scanning. The internet historically relied on self-attestation, where users declared their age without verification. New laws seek to replace self-attestation with stronger methods. The choice of method affects user privacy, data handling, rights, and who gains access to online information.

Read at Electronic Frontier Foundation