Software Engineering Daily · Tuesday, September 1, 2026
John Coleman outlines four main methods of age assurance: self-declaration, age inference, document-based verification, and biometric verification. He notes that each method has different trade-offs regarding accuracy, privacy, and user convenience, with FIRE expressing particular concern over methods that require identification.
“So perhaps it's a good idea just to dive into the four main approaches of age assurance.”
“The first is self-declaration. And it's essentially an honor system where a user is asked to confirm that they're over a certain age.”
“The second is age inference. And so, this is where a platform estimates an age using existing account data or someone's behavior online.”