Yubo age prediction tool puts security in focus

Yubo, one of the world’s largest teen social networking sites, has rolled out mandatory age-verification technology that it says will cull about 6m of its users.

Yubo will require all users to verify their age through a photo-examining system.

One of the world’s largest teen social networking sites has rolled out mandatory age-verification technology that it believes can predict a user’s age with up to 99 per cent accuracy by analysing their photograph.

The move from French social media platform Yubo forms part of a larger bid to ensure the safety of its users, 99 per cent of whom are Gen Z.

Yubo chief executive Sascha Lazimi says his platform could lose up to six million users, as it aims to verify the age of all of its users by the end of 2022.

“We anticipate that we will maybe lose between 5-10 per cent of users on the platform, either because they had a fake account, because they don’t want to do the process or they don’t understand the process,” he said. “But for us, it’s fine to lose 5-10 per cent of users if we are protecting more than 90 per cent of users on the platform.”

The new verification model works in partnership with digital identity platform Yoti, which uses an algorithm to detect first whether an image is fake and then to estimate age. Yoti promises to effectively estimate the age of six- to 12-year-olds to within 1.3 years and those aged 13 to 19 to within 1.5 years.

Mr Lazimi and Yubo head of safety Margaux Liquard both tested the software. Only Ms Liquard’s estimate was accurate. “Well, it gave me my real age which is about 33 years old,” she said.

Mr Lazimi was 34, according to Yoti. “I’m 29 but I look a bit older,” he said. “For those under 18 years old, it’s 99 per cent accurate which is great.”

Yubo head of safety operation Margaux Liquard, 33.

Yubo chief executive Sascha Lazimi, 29.

Yubo has already verified the ages of those aged between 13 to 14, who make up 20 per cent of users, under a beta-phase rollout of the software.

Australians make up about 1.2m of the network’s 60m users. About 99 per cent of the platforms’ users are aged 13 to 25, with 80 per cent of them making up the 16 to 26 age group. Only 1 per cent of users are over the age of 25.

Asked how he would respond to parents who were concerned with their child uploading photos online, Mr Lazimi said that having a profile picture was a mandatory requirement of the platform.

“The goal of Yubo is not to (gather) the data of users to sell to a third party; we are using the data of our users to improve the experience on the platform,” he said. “We’d say that this is the best platform for their teens to use because we are definitely protecting their data.”

Ms Liquard said that while photo verification was mandatory, identifying details was not.

“Our users are not required to handover any personal details or identification documents to receive their age estimation. Their information is never seen by any person. And we don’t store any data we actually believe in privacy of our users,” she said. “The development of this age-verification tool not only addresses one of the largest challenges in the online safety of today, but it also provides another level of protection to our users and it democratises the age-verification process, as many users under the age of 16 do not have any ID or any form of identification.”

Australians make up about 1.2m of Yubo’s 60m users.

Being aged at least 13 has become the standard across most social media platforms including Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Reddit, however each have different verification tools. TikTok intentionally does not indicate its age requirement to deter under-13s from lying about their age.

“TikTok is strictly a 13-plus platform and we have processes in place to enforce our minimum age requirements, both at the point of sign-up and through the continuous proactive removal of suspected underage accounts from the platform,” a spokeswoman said.

Snapchat said any detection that a user was under 13 would result in an immediate termination of their account and their data would be deleted.

Ms Liquard said she took a lot of pride in the new software.

“It helps reducing fake profiles, separate minors and adults and of course, keep users safe,” she said.