Professor Barry O'Sullivan:

Yes. It is in parents' interests that there are technologies that address this. As for other age verification technology we could build, one could imagine solutions based on artificial intelligence, AI, which, based on the manner in which the user interacts with the device, estimate his or her age and ask for confirmation. Another technology could use some notion of a digital certificate that a parent can grant to a child to protect his or her anonymity if that is important to them. That certificate could be uploaded to a platform to prove that the user has permission. The certificate could come from, say, the office of the Digital Safety Commissioner. There are many solutions. One will hear people on the web who hold the view that anonymity is key, but this attitude tends to come from the first amendment to the US constitution and the idea that people have the right to free speech and so on. However, I think if one asks most parents and most kids, anonymity is not important to them and they are prepared to engage with technologies if there is a benefit. If there is a benefit in making the Internet safer, more easy to use and so on, I think people would welcome these technologies.