Age Assurance Technology Trial

Evaluating the effectiveness, maturity and readiness of age assurance for Australia.

The Australian Government has commissioned an age assurance trial to examine options to protect children from harmful content such as pornography and other online age-restricted services, as well as harms on social media. The trial has a number of components that will ultimately guide Government decision making.

This website is about one component - an independent trial and assessment of age assurance technologies to evaluate their effectiveness, maturity, and readiness for use in the Australian context.

About the trial

Core Principals

The Guiding Principles of the Age Assurance Technology Trial

Respect

Respect is a core value in ethical research, recognising the inherent worth of all individuals and participants’ autonomy to make decisions affecting them. In the context of the Trial, it is particularly important to respec groups of participants with diminished autonomy, such as young children. Respect underpins and connects all of the following principles.

Transparency

Transparency involves clearly communicating the purpose, scope, methodology, and governance processes of the trial. This facilitates accountability and supports informed decision-making, by empowering individuals and organisations to understand how they are affected by the trial. Given the sensitivity of debates surrounding age assurance, transparency is vital to mitigate misinformation and build confidence in the integrity of the trial.

Accountability

Accountability ensures that the individuals and organisations involved in the trial take responsibility for their decisions and actions, including through the establishment of clear governance processes. It encourages the creation of simple mechanisms that enable concerns to be raised and addressed, facilitating quick corrective action. It is closely related to, and dependent on, transparency.

Fairness

All of the Trial’s activities, decisions and processes should be equitable, inclusive, and just. Fairness requires treating people and organisations in an impartial manner, recognising and addressing systemic inequalities, and ensuring equal access to the opportunities and benefits of the Trial. For example, evaluation approaches should be designed in a way that is balanced across different technologies, and the trial will include an assessment of the level of bias towards marginalised groups and across different demographics.

Privacy

Privacy protects individual’s autonomy, dignity, and control over their personal information, and plays an important role in facilitating other fundamental rights. A strong commitment to privacy includes enabling individuals to make informed choices about how their data is collected and processed, safeguarding their data from misuse or exploitation. The trial will limiting collection of data to strictly what is required; employing security measures to safeguard personal information; pseudonymise personal information that will be exposed to external algorithmic systems and delete all stored personal information as soon asit is no longer needed.

Safeguard Children

As the trial sets out to evaluate technologies designed to protect children online, some children will be directly involved in the trial. The trial will at all times prioritise child safety and wellbeing, including through paying due regard to children’s rights. Children will be informed about the trial and their rights in accessible language, including their right to withdraw from participation in the trial.

Trial Timeline

The trial began in November 2024 and will publish its final report at the end of June 2025

Call for participation

6 – 27 January

The project invites Expressions of Interest in submitting age assurance solutions to be considered as part of the trial.

Practice Statements and Vendor interviews

27 January – 10 February

Solutions provisionally selected will be described in a Practice Statement based on ISO 27566-1 which is the basis on which testing is designed. Stakeholder engagement event in Sydney.

Testing

10 February – 17 April

We will conduct a range of laboratory and empirical tests and interviews on the methods selected for the trial.

Result validation and remediation

22 April – 23 May

Provisional testing results are shared with the participants, with an opportunity to correct errors. Stakeholder engagement event in Sydney.

Report preparation and publication

26 May - 26 June

Final Stakeholder engagement event in Canberra.

Please use the Contact Us form if you cannot find answers to any questions you may have, after checking our Frequently Asked Questions.

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Events

09 Jan, 2024 - 12:00am

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The Project Team respectfully acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the lands and water in Australia where the trial will be conducted and the team pay respects to Ancestors and Elders past, present and emerging and are proud to support their communities through their inclusion and careful consideration throughout the design, implementation, communication and reporting of the trial.

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