Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Rejects Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) Proposal to Use Personal Identification Age Verification Tool .
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About a year ago, the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) faced criticism when it announced that it was working on a facial recognition tool to verify users' ages with an app that was submitted around the same time. Well, about 300 days later, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that it had rejected the agency's application.
In a blog post published last Friday, the FTC announced that it had rejected the company’s application for the technology. The FTC said it rejected the application by a vote of 4-0, noting that it received more than 350 comments on the issue before the vote. According to the FTC, those who opposed the application cited privacy , security , accuracy , and deepfakes as concerns . In contrast, those who supported the application felt that it had “adequate privacy guidelines . ”
The ESRB did not immediately respond to IGN's request for comment.
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If the application had been approved, the FRC would have added facial age detection technology to the list of acceptable forms of parental consent for the collection of information from minors under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
For those unfamiliar with COPPA, the law was, quite simply, designed to protect the privacy of children under 13, by requiring parental consent for the collection or use of personal data about these minor users.
Last year, the ESRB partnered with digital identity company Yoti and SuperAwesome to create this technology to verify users' ages. The ESRB said it was not intended to directly identify individuals but rather estimate a user's age, and said it would not store the data after the analysis was complete.
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The application filed last year revealed the steps for verification, which involve a user taking a photo of themselves and the system checking if there is a human face in the frame and uploading it back to Yoti's server for age estimation. A similar concept to what Roblox in 2023, where users must upload a selfie and a passport or driver's license to verify their age to view mature content.
While the FTC rejected the proposal, the US regulator said it may resubmit the application “in the future.”.
Source: ign
