Snapchat has suspended more than 415,000 accounts in Australia, the company said in a statement, in response to a law banning the use of social media by those under 16.
In a blog post on Monday, Snapchat said it had closed more than 415,000 Snapchat accounts in Australia by the end of January. These users were under the age of 16 or the platform used its own technology to identify them as under the age of 16.
“We are continuing to close more accounts every day.”
Celebrating the success of the ban in January this year, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said that about 4.7 million accounts had been removed from these platforms in the first few days after the ban came into effect.
However, since the ban was implemented, several complaints have also come to light. Some reports have suggested that teenagers are easily circumventing Snapchat’s age-detection technology by looking at their faces.
“There are several technical limitations in accurately and reliably verifying age.”
Referring to a trial last year, Snapchat said its facial recognition technology gave results that were 2 to 3 years off a person’s actual age, which is not entirely accurate.
“In practice, this means that people under the age of 16 can bypass this protection system. As a result, their security remains at risk. On the other hand, those over the age of 16 can also have their accounts closed by mistake.”
Snapchat also said that there are many apps where users communicate with each other, but they are not covered by this ban. As a result, teenagers will turn to alternative and less regulated messaging apps.
“While it is not possible to say with certainty from the data at this time, such risks should be seriously considered by policymakers, especially when they are assessing whether the law has achieved its intended goals.”
Although the Australian government has named 10 platforms to comply with the social media ban, it is believed that they will independently verify all platforms that have Australian users.
However, since the ban came into effect, the e-Safety Commissioner’s main oversight has been on the 10 platforms initially on the list.
Last month, e-safety commissioner Julie Inman Grant said: “Our team is small, so we are forced to focus on the areas where young people are most likely to be involved, such as platforms with more than 250,000 users. We are also looking at other smaller companies with around 100,000 users. This work will continue. We are by no means finished.”
Meanwhile, Snapchat, like US social media giant Meta, has demanded that the age verification process be done directly at the app store level, such as the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store.
