Youtube should not use AI age verification that requires a picture of an ID to verify if a user is over the age of 18. On August 13th, youtube started rolling out AI verification to improve their age restriction policy. Youtube was forced to improve their verification due to a settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that talked about child safety on the platform. The AI that youtube created goes through everyone's search and watch history, account age, and how long their account has been active for. If the AI detects anything and determines that the user is under 18, it asks for a government ID and gives a chance for the user to prove they are over 18 and if they don't show that they are over 18, their account would be restricted from searching and watching certain topics.
Kids can get flagged by the AI, and won't be able to verify and show they are over 18, which can cause them to lose the permissions for many videos. For example, youtube videos can get flagged by the AI and it makes the video become age restricted, which makes it so only people over the age of 18 can view and interact with the video. Many kids watch these videos that are from their favorite youtubers, which makes the viewers unable to watch videos that are age restricted, that stops them from staying entertained and can also get the creators channel flagged from being searched on the platform. Even though youtube kids exist where there are no age restricted videos and kids don't have to worry about verification, there are content on there where they are AI-generated content farms that can show inappropriate content but as characters from a cartoon, game, etc.
80-85% of people on youtube's platform are kids under the age of 12, which shows that most of the content on the platform are for kids under 12 and some are for 13 and older. Youtubers income is mostly gained from kids watching their content but if their video gets age restricted, it lowers the amount of views and money they make. Youtube’s AI also falsely bans youtubers for inappropriate content even if their content had nothing inappropriate.
Some people say that AI verification is a good idea. For example, Sophomore Braden Zaitschek said, “I think it's great because it stops kids from accessing videos for ages over 18, and makes it safer for kids on the platform so they aren’t exposed to stuff they shouldn't be exposed to.” Most people said that it was a bad idea due to privacy concerns, like Sophomore Brandon Roberts said “I think it's horrible, because it's a breach of privacy and if a breach happens, people can take the information of the government ids the AI has used to prove that person was over the age of 18.”
Overall, Youtube should not be using AI to prove that people are over 18. Kids would be unable to watch or view any content that is supposed to be made for them, but the videos get age restricted causing them to not be entertained and making them worry about why they can't watch videos. It’s also a bad idea because people could get their government ID’s leaked by people that can hack into the AI and can see all the scanned ID’s that were used, and use it to harm the person they have on the ID.
