Kids Safety Experts Announce Privacy-Focused Age Assurance Initiative
The Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI), k-ID and other stakeholders launched the OpenAge Initiative to develop an open standard for privacy-preserving age assurance, OpenAge announced Monday.
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OpenAge includes AgeKey, “a reusable digital age signal built on the FIDO Alliance and World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards, under the WebAuthn and FIDO2 specifications.” It said the mechanism “allows users to verify their age once, store that verification as an AgeKey on their own device, and then reuse it securely across multiple services, reducing friction while protecting personal data.”
AgeKey accepts government IDs residing in digital wallets from Apple, Google and Samsung, it said. “This provides the highest evidence of proof-of-age without having to repeatedly share more information than required via their government IDs. Once the proof becomes an AgeKey, then its privacy properties including site-specific passkey identifiers plus the double-blind architecture ensure there is no issuer-verifier or verifier-verifier correlation.”
“AgeKey has been evaluated by ESRB Privacy Certified as part of its certification of k-ID's COPPA-compliant parental consent flow,” added OpenAge. “The technology, based on approved verifiable parental consent methods recognized under COPPA, preserves privacy and enhances security by eliminating the need for repeated ID checks while maintaining compliance with the FTC's requirements.”
During an online safety event hosted by FOSI Monday, Julian Corbett, co-founder of age verification company k-ID and head of OpenAge, said, “We must stop treating age assurance as a burden and start seeing it as reusable, interoperable and preserving privacy" and "as an accelerant.”
OpenAge’s advisory board includes Baroness Joanna Shields, founder of WeProtect; FOSI CEO Stephen Balkam; David Wright, CEO of English tech safety charity SWGfl; and Natascha Gerlach, privacy director of the Centre for Information Policy Leadership.
Shields said the initiative "proves that safety and privacy can move forward together. For the first time, we have a standard for age assurance that is simple, reusable, and privacy-first.”
Balkam said OpenAge “represents a significant jump forward in age assurance technology that offers improved accuracy, privacy, affordability and interoperability for companies, and efficiency and choice for users."