#national: Under-16 Social Media Ban Raises a Bigger Question — How Much Privacy Are We Willing to Give Up?

Plans to keep children under 16 off social media could create new privacy risks for every New Zealander, with Privacy Commissioner Michael Webster warning that proving someone’s age inevitably raises questions about what personal information must be collected, stored and potentially shared.

The warning comes as debate intensifies over proposals for a minimum social media age, with Webster acknowledging that online harm is both real and serious but arguing that any response needs careful consideration and meaningful public consultation.

At the centre of the issue is a deceptively simple question: how does a social media company actually know somebody is under 16?

To identify the children, you may have to check everyone

Age restrictions only work if platforms have some reliable method of distinguishing a 14-year-old from a 16-year-old — and potentially distinguishing both from an adult.

The Privacy Commissioner says any technology used to prove or estimate age carries privacy implications, and those implications are not limited to children.

Mandatory age assurance could potentially involve additional personal information being collected from users, technologies attempting to estimate someone’s age, or existing information being repurposed to determine how old somebody is.

That creates risks including data breaches, inaccurate age estimation and the reuse of information originally collected for completely different purposes.

For policymakers, the challenge is ensuring a law intended to make rangatahi safer does not inadvertently create another large pool of sensitive information requiring protection.

Young people have privacy rights too

Webster is also reminding policymakers that privacy rights do not begin when somebody turns 16 or 18.

Tamariki and rangatahi have privacy rights themselves.

That means age-assurance systems need to be designed in ways that minimise the amount of information collected and provide strong protections around how that information can subsequently be used.

The issue becomes particularly important where technology such as facial analysis, identity documents or third-party verification services could become part of the process.

New Zealand already has specific privacy rules governing biometric processing, reflecting the sensitivity attached to information derived from people’s physical characteristics.

Online safety needs to be bigger than an age ban

The Commissioner is also calling for the debate to extend beyond whether under-16s should have social media accounts.

He says New Zealand needs a broader conversation about making online environments safer for everybody, including effective regulation of the environments technology companies create.

That shifts some of the focus from the behaviour of children towards the responsibilities of platforms themselves.

Algorithms, content recommendation systems, data collection and platform design all influence what users experience online.

Children’s Commissioner Jane Searle has raised a similar concern, arguing that age restrictions alone will not keep children safe and that greater scrutiny needs to be placed on technology companies, their algorithms, content moderation and product design.

Learn from overseas before locking in the rules

Webster says New Zealand should also examine the strengths and weaknesses of international approaches before committing to its own system.

That means understanding not simply whether an overseas ban exists, but whether it works in practice, how easily young people circumvent it, what information is required for age verification and what unintended privacy consequences have emerged.

The Commissioner says the potential impact on New Zealanders’ privacy rights means any minimum-age proposal should be subject to full public consultation.

Some privacy safeguards already strengthened

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner has been working with government officials during development of the proposal.

Webster raised concerns specifically about how privacy protections would apply when a third-party provider carries out age assurance on behalf of a social media platform.

He says that issue has now been addressed through additional protections, while his office expects to continue engaging as the proposal progresses.

That oversight will remain important because age verification potentially creates a chain involving users, technology platforms and external verification providers.

Each additional organisation handling personal information introduces questions about who can see it, how long it is retained and what else it could eventually be used for.

Safety versus surveillance cannot become a false choice

There is widespread concern about the harm tamariki and rangatahi can encounter online.

But the Privacy Commissioner’s intervention highlights another principle that policymakers will need to protect at the same time.

Keeping children safer should not require building an unnecessarily intrusive digital identification system for everybody else.

The challenge for Parliament is therefore considerably bigger than choosing whether the minimum age should be 16.

It must determine how age will be established, what information companies will be permitted to collect, how that information will be protected and whether the proposed system actually reduces the harms it was created to address.

Because the ultimate test is not simply whether fewer children can open a social media account.

It is whether New Zealand can make the digital world safer without requiring everyone to surrender more of their privacy to get there.

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