A report based on a survey by the UK’s Internet Matters shows that much of the responsibility for managing the online safety of children still falls on families.

The Online Safety Act came into effect in July, 2025, and the report explores what has changed in the online lives of UK families since then.

We discussed in December 2025 whether the privacy risks of age verification outweighed the enhanced child protection. While the report shows some progress, it mostly provides “an early view of how the online landscape is changing, and crucially, where it is not.”

Around half of children say they now see more age-appropriate content, and roughly four in ten parents and children feel the online world has become somewhat safer.

The online world is as much a part of a child’s environment as the physical world is. And blocking the view to parts of that world is not taken lightly. Almost half of children think age checks are easy to bypass. About a third admit to doing so recently, using tactics from fake birthdates and borrowed logins to spoofed faces and, less commonly, VPNs.

“I did catch my son [12] using an eyebrow pencil to draw a moustache on his face, and it verified him as 15 years old.”

Yet 90% of children who noticed improved blocking and reporting saw this as a good thing. Their support for these safety features is pragmatic. They point to:

• clearer rules
• restricted contact with strangers
• limits on high-risk functions

 They also rate these features as helpful in reducing exposure to harmful content and interactions.

But the system is not perfect. In the month after the child protection codes came into force, almost half of children reported some online harm, including violent, hateful, and body image-related content that should be covered by the Act’s protections.

The survey also revealed that age checks are now commonplace. Over half of children said they were asked to verify their age within a recent two-month window, often on major platforms like TikTok, YouTube/Google, and Roblox, on both new and existing accounts.

The technology is improving. Platforms use facial age estimation, government ID, and third-party age assurance apps, and these are usually easy for children to complete.

However, gains in protection come with unresolved and, in some cases, growing concerns around privacy and data use, especially around age verification and AI.

Parents are worried not just about what data is collected for age checks, but whether it will be stored or reused by government or industry. This has fueled calls for central, privacy-protective solutions rather than fragmented data collection across platforms.

Because age assurance systems are both intrusive (in terms of data) and often ineffective (easy workarounds, weak enforcement), the report suggests they may not yet provide a good safety-to-privacy trade-off from a family perspective.

Obviously, the survey also didn’t capture input from adults pretending to be children to gain access to child-only spaces, a risk that parents link directly to predatory behavior.

The authors conclude that the Online Safety Act has started to reshape children’s online environments, making safety features more visible and enabling more age‑appropriate experiences in some areas.

However, the Act has not yet produced a “step change.” Harmful content remains widespread, age‑assurance is patchy and easy to circumvent, and key concerns such as time spent online, AI risks, and persuasive design remain under‑regulated.

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Discord announced it will put all existing and new profiles in teen-appropriate mode by default in early March.

The teen-appropriate profile mode will remain in place until users prove they are adults. To change a profile to “full access” will require verification by Discord’s age inference model—a new system that runs in the background to help determine whether an account belongs to an adult, without always requiring users to verify their age.

Savannah Badalich, Head of Product Policy at Discord, explained the reasoning:

“Rolling out teen-by-default settings globally builds on Discord’s existing safety architecture, giving teens strong protections while allowing verified adults flexibility. We design our products with teen safety principles at the core and will continue working with safety experts, policymakers, and Discord users to support meaningful, long term wellbeing for teens on the platform.”

Platforms have been facing growing regulatory pressure—particularly in the UK, EU, and parts of the US—to introduce stronger age-verification measures. The announcement also comes as concerns about children’s safety on social media continue to surface. In research we published today, parents highlighted issues such as exposure to inappropriate content, unwanted contact, and safeguards that are easy to bypass. Discord was one of the platforms we researched.

The problem in Discord’s case lies in the age-verification methods it’s made available, which require either a facial scan or a government-issued ID. Discord says that video selfies used for facial age estimation never leave a user’s device, but this method is known not to work reliably for everyone.

Identity documents submitted to Discord’s vendor partners are also deleted quickly—often immediately after age confirmation, according to Discord. But, as we all know, computers are very bad at “forgetting” things and criminals are very good at finding things that were supposed to be gone.

Besides all that, the effectiveness of this kind of measure remains an issue. Minors often find ways around systems—using borrowed IDs, VPNs, or false information—so strict verification can create a sense of safety without fully eliminating risk. In some cases, it may even push activity into less regulated or more opaque spaces.

As someone who isn’t an avid Discord user, I can’t help but wonder why keeping my profile teen-appropriate would be a bad thing. Let us know in the comments what your objections to this scenario would be.

I wouldn’t have to provide identification and what I’d “miss” doesn’t sound terrible at all:

• Mature and graphic images would be permanently blocked.
• Age-restricted channels and servers would be inaccessible.
• DMs from unknown users would be rerouted to a separate inbox.
• Friend requests from unknown users would always trigger a warning pop-up.
• No speaking on server stages.

Given the amount of backlash this news received, I’m probably missing something—and I don’t mind being corrected. So let’s hear it.

Note: All comments are moderated. Those including links and inappropriate language will be deleted. The rest must be approved by a moderator.

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