American tech heavyweight Google on Friday reiterated its opposition to verifying the age of a device’s user through the app stores built into operating systems, calling a proposal from Facebook and Instagram parent Meta ‘ineffective’.
Limiting access to age-restricted content online is a live issue in Europe, with France battling pornography sites over its newly-introduced requirement that they check users’ ages.
Paris is also one of several capitals pressing Brussels to introduce Europe-wide regulations cutting off access to social networks for under-15s over concerns including addiction, cyberbullying and hate speech.
Basing age verification on details from a device’s app store ‘would require the sharing of granular age band data with millions of developers... who don’t need it’, such as producers of uncontroversial apps like flashlights, Google wrote in a blog post.Â