Roughly a year ago, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) drew attention when it unveiled plans to develop a facial recognition tool for age verification in tandem with an application submitted around that same time. However, approximately 300 days later, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) made an announcement that it had rejected the organization's application.
In a blog post released last Friday, the FTC disclosed that it had turned down the company's application for the technology. The decision was reached through a 4-0 vote, with over 350 comments received by the FTC on the matter prior to the vote. Those opposing the application raised concerns about privacy, protections, accuracy, and deepfakes. Conversely, supporters believed that the application included "sufficient privacy guardrails."
Had the application been approved, the FRC would have added the facial age detection tech to the list of acceptable forms of receiving parental consent for collecting information from minor-aged users under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
For those unfamiliar with COPPA, the law is designed to protect the privacy of children under the age of 13 by requiring parental consent for the collection or use of personal data for these underage users.
Last year, the ESRB collaborated with the digital identity firm Yoti and SuperAwesome to create this technology for age verification. The ESRB clarified that the tool was not intended to outright identify individuals, but rather estimate the user's age, and it asserted that the data would not be stored after the analysis was completed.
The application submitted last year outlined the verification process, involving a user taking a picture of themselves, and the system checking for a human face in the frame, followed by uploading it to Yoti's backend server for age estimation. This is similar to a concept Roblox incorporated in 2023, wherein users must upload a selfie and a government-issued ID, such as a driver's license or passport, to verify their age for accessing mature content.
Despite the rejection by the FTC, the U.S. regulator stated that the application could potentially be resubmitted "in the future."
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