Online minor safety is a fundamental requirement for every business with a digital presence. Whether it’s preventing underage users from accessing adult content, gambling or even renting a scooter, businesses must ensure their customers are who they say they are and are suitable to do business with.
But kids are savvy, and many have found workarounds, such as using their parents’ identification. Even more challenging is restricting content for younger kids, as children under 16 typically don’t have official identification cards that can be used to verify their age. Furthermore, privacy laws and regulations may prevent businesses from collecting biometric data such as selfies on kids.
The Challenge of Social Platforms
Social media platforms in particular are challenging environments for protecting minors, because adults and children of any age can easily interact. Whenever an incident of crime against a minor or cyberbullying makes the news, it reflects badly on the social media platform and drives users away. Since consumers have a finite amount of time on social media, and each platform is vying for your attention, any negative news can be harmful to the company’s business.
How Jumio Helps
Jumio helps protect minors by enabling businesses to deliver a safe and trusted medium online. We do this in a number of ways and at various points throughout the user journey:
- When a user signs up for a social platform, we perform a series of low-friction checks, such as IP address check, geolocation check, date of birth verification, mobile phone and email verification. We then provide a risk score based on these attributes.
- If the user’s risk score is higher than a certain threshold, we can perform more detailed ID verification and checks.
- If a user demonstrates a certain behavior or pattern of behaviors that violate a platform’s terms and conditions, we can trigger further verification.
- When a user monetizes their content and/or moves money into or out of the platform, we can trigger an ID verification and selfie matching to ensure this is the same user who signed up on the platform instead of a fraudster.
We can also anchor a minor to their guardian by taking the guardian through the identity verification process on the child’s behalf, in which they submit their ID and take a selfie. Jumio uses liveness detection to determine that the adult is physically present and matches the picture on their ID. The platform can then prompt the guardian to approve certain activities initiated by the minor — such as making purchases or accepting friend requests — over text or email.
By providing cutting-edge age verification solutions, Jumio gives businesses the right tools to protect minors online as well as the flexibility to configure the right amount of checks for their business.
To start a conversation about how Jumio can solve your age verification needs, just fill out this form, and a solution expert will be in touch shortly.
