SAN FRANCISCO, November 17, 2023 – Today, Persona, the leading unified identity platform, and Paravision, the leader in Trusted Vision AI, announced the release of an enhanced AI-based age estimation and verification solution. Based on Paravision’s AI Principles and Persona’s mission to humanize digital identity, this solution is ethically built and trained on a diverse set of data, as well as rigorously audited to detect and mitigate bias. 

Long required for businesses offering age-restricted products, services, and activities, the need to conduct age verification has now expanded to include social networks, gaming, and other online platforms as children spend an increasing amount of time online. New legislation to restrict children’s access to harmful or otherwise inappropriate content has been introduced globally, such as the Kids Online Safety Act in the US, a bipartisan bill, and the recently passed Online Safety Act in the UK, which specifically mentions using “age verification or age estimation (or both) to prevent children of any age from encountering primary priority content that is harmful to children which the provider identifies on the service.”

In addition, with US President Biden’s recent Executive Order on the safe, secure, and trustworthy development and use of artificial intelligence, as well as AI models being sanctioned by the Department of Treasury, it is more critical than ever for companies to engage ethical and compliant partners.

The need for reliable, responsible age estimation technology has never been more pressing, particularly in light of the growing concerns around children’s online presence as well as leveraging ethical approaches to AI. We are thrilled to be working with Persona to launch a solution that will help ensure the safety and well-being of children and teenagers online, while meeting rigorous ethical standards.

Joey Pritikin, Chief Product Officer of Paravision

The joint solution enables businesses to:

  • Verify end-users’ ages faster, while respecting their privacy: Leverage age estimation when evaluating users’ selfies, which can reduce friction by eliminating the need to collect a government-issued ID, depending on the user’s estimated age. Coupled with Persona’s granular data retention and redaction policies configured in Dynamic Flow, this new technology helps companies deliver more seamless, privacy-compliant experiences not only to underage users and their parents and guardians, but also to adults using the same platforms and services.
  • Remain agile in the face of shifting regulations requiring age verification and privacy expectations. Configure and adapt user-facing flows and automated workflows to meet evolving compliance, user consent, and privacy requirements without requiring significant engineering resources.
  • Maintain high ethical standards and reduce the risk of regulatory scrutiny. Rest assured that the AI models applied through Persona are trained on ethically sourced data and monitored for bias by Persona and Paravision.

Already, a number of global, high-growth organizations, including Lime and Coffee Meets Bagel, trust Persona to verify the ages of their users. 

“It is encouraging to see lawmakers pushing platforms, and therefore their identity solution providers, towards greater innovation and responsibility. The mandate is clear: we must balance the delivery of high-assurance, unbiased solutions with safeguarding end user privacy. We believe our industry-leading solution will help our customers better deliver trusted services, while complying with age verification regulations, fighting fraud, and keeping users safe.

Daniel Lee, Head of Identity Products at Persona

 

About Persona:

Persona offers trusted identity infrastructure that gives businesses the building blocks they need to securely collect, verify, manage, and make decisions about individuals or other businesses – along with automation and orchestration tools to streamline the entire process from end to end. Founded in 2018, Persona is headquartered in San Francisco and is available in 200+ countries and 20 different languages. Persona serves any business that needs to verify its customers online, including retail, fintech, marketplace, delivery services, real estate and hospitality, HR, edtech, legal services, home and childcare services, and more. For additional information, please visit https://withpersona.com/