A principled approach to protecting young users
Age verification and age assurance are critical components of modern online safety strategies. With legislation such as the UK Online Safety Act placing new duties on organisations, understanding how to implement age checks responsibly has become a board-level concern.
Online Responsibility Network supports organisations by helping them assure their approach through a structured, principle-based assurance framework.
Interest in age verification, age assurance and online child safety continues to grow.
Without strong governance, even technically robust age verification solutions can undermine trust or introduce unintended risks.
Organisations must carefully balance:
Protection of children and young people
Privacy and data minimisation
Accuracy, bias and error rates
User experience and accessibility
ORN’s assurance framework for age verification
ORN helps members assess:
- Risk-based selection of age assurance methods
- Privacy, data protection and transparency controls
- Oversight of vendors and third-party technologies
- User experience, accessibility and fairness
- Ongoing monitoring and effectiveness review
This approach enables organisations to demonstrate reasonable, proportionate and well-documented decision-making, regardless of the solutions they deploy.
Outcomes for members
Members benefit from:
Confidence in age assurance decisions
Alignment with regulatory expectations
Clear documentation for audit and assurance
Stronger trust with users, partners and regulators