Prime Highlights:

• Governments in the K. and U.S. are taking strong actionto make the internet safer for children, pushing companies to introduce stricter safety measures.
• New child-friendly technologies, including smartphones and age-check systems, are being launched to protect kids from harmful content online.

Key Facts:

• The K. Online Safety Actrequires tech companies to protect children from harmful content, with fines of up to 10% of global annual revenue for non-compliance.
• Platforms like Spotify, Reddit, X, and Pornhubhave already added age-verification systems, showing that the industry is responding positively to these safety rules.

Key Background:

A worldwide effort to protect children on the internet is moving forward, with new rules in the U.K. and U.S. encouraging the use of advanced technology to keep young users away from harmful online content.

The new Online Safety Act in the U.K. imposes on technology companies the responsibility to shield children against harmful online content, including inappropriate materials, bullying, hate speech, fraud, and child abuse. Companies that do not follow the law could face fines of up to 10% of their yearly global revenue.

In the United States, legislators are developing the Kids Online Safety Act that will hold social media companies liable to ensure their services do not endanger children. Such regulations are compelling technology companies to enhance age verification and to introduce more security capabilities.

Well-known platforms like Spotify, Reddit, and X have already introduced systems to confirm user ages. Even adult sites now need an identity check prior to entry. This development has also opened up opportunities to companies that provide age-verification services, such as Yoti, which can determine the age of a user with an extremely high degree of accuracy.

The focus is not only on software. Finnish phone maker HMD Global recently introduced the Fusion X1, a smartphone built specifically for children. The phone can block harmful images and stop the sharing of unsafe content. It was developed with British cybersecurity firm SafeToNet, showing that device makers are also focusing on child safety.

But the new steps have brought about privacy concerns as well. It might be risky to gather personal information, including identity details, unless the information is highly secured. They claim that there are less risky ways to do it, though businesses have to make more efforts to retain user confidence.

As governments are increasingly imposing tougher regulations and parents seek alternatives with more protective features, child protection will soon come to be a primary concern of big tech companies, such as Google and Meta, in the future.