Software owned by Australia’s largest banks is being tested as part of efforts to enforce a new ban on teenagers using social media, set to take effect in December. The move could place the country’s financial sector at the centre of a world-first regulatory measure.
At the heart of the trials is ConnectID, an identity verification tool owned by Australia’s top lenders. ConnectID confirms a person’s age through their bank account details. The system is being offered alongside facial estimation technology from Singapore-based provider k-ID, which estimates a user’s age using facial recognition.
According to k-ID, the pairing is already being tested by some social media companies in Australia, though it did not disclose which ones. The firm currently provides age estimation services for Discord in Britain, where stricter age limits have been introduced for adult content. ConnectID confirmed its partnership with k-ID but said no clients have yet signed up to use the system for the upcoming ban.
The companies are also exploring opportunities to expand their services to gaming platforms in Australia. While these platforms are not directly impacted by the social media ban, they face separate regulations that require stronger protections for younger users.
The collaboration could give the banking sector a critical role in implementing online safety laws that are attracting international attention. ConnectID was among several age-verification tools trialled in a government-commissioned review earlier this year. However, its partnership with k-ID and testing by social media platforms has not been reported before.
The ConnectID system works by linking a website to a user’s bank account, which then sends an anonymous signal confirming whether the user is above a set age. The company said this could provide greater accuracy than facial estimation technology alone, particularly since most teenagers already hold bank accounts.
Andrew Black, managing director of ConnectID, said: “It’s something we’ve been doing with major partners over the last couple of years across any ID. Age assurance and social media is an interesting inflection point for that.”
A government report last month found that age estimation tools can generally enforce the ban but noted that selfie-based systems lose accuracy around the critical cut-off age of 16. Officials have since urged social media firms to introduce increasingly reliable options for verifying user age.
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