Ofcom published age-assurance guidance on 9 August 2024 under the Online Safety Act, setting out how platforms must verify or estimate user ages to comply with child-safety duties. The guidance describes a tiered approach ranging from self-declaration to biometric estimation and hard identity verification, and states that the method chosen must be proportionate to the level of risk a service presents. Platforms hosting user-to-user content accessible to children are expected to implement age-appropriate protections by the first compliance deadline in early 2025.
Verifying a user's age establishes eligibility but does not prevent an adult offender from exploiting a child who passes the gate, nor does it detect abuse occurring within an age-compliant cohort. Technology that monitors the substance of communication—recognising the linguistic and behavioural signatures of grooming, sextortion and child sexual abuse material—protects the child at the moment of contact. As a Meta Business Partner with real-time detection modules deployed across major platforms, Guardii identifies threat patterns in direct messages without requiring age declaration from every participant, surfacing risk to parents, schools or safeguarding professionals and enabling escalation to the appropriate authority when a child is in acute distress or immediate danger.
