German youth protection body endorses AI as biometric age-verification tool

Three systems that verify peoples' age with AI technology to prevent minors from being exposed to harmful content have been endorsed by Germany's Commission for the Protection of Minors in the Media. The commission is Germany's central supervisory body for the protection of minors on private nationwide television and the internet. These AI systems, which the body has given a positive rating, are trained by machine learning to assess a person's age based on biometric characteristics. "The fact that AI can now also be used for age verification and thus to protect children and young people from problematic content is an important, new step," said the commission's chairman, Marc Jan Eumann, in a press release last week (24 May). According to Eumann, the use of AI in this area is a "milestone in the technical protection of children and young people in media.