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Google to Release Age Assurance Tool to Detect Minor Users Pretending to be Adults

Google to Release Age Assurance Tool to Detect Minor Users Pretending to be Adults

Google says its machine learning (ML) tool will look at the searches made by the user and videos watched on YouTube.

Written by Akash Dutta, Edited by Ketan Pratap | Updated: 31 July 2025 12:08 IST

Google to Release Age Assurance Tool to Detect Minor Users Pretending to be Adults

Photo Credit: Google

Google also shows minor accounts Digital Wellbeing notifications to take breaks on YouTube

Highlights

The tool is planned to be released in the US
Initially, it will be released to a small subset of Google account users
The minor Google accounts do not show personalised ads

Google plans to release an age assurance tool in the US that will assess whether an account is being used by a minor or an adult. On Thursday, the Mountain View-based tech giant announced that it will be releasing this algorithm-based tool to a small set of users in the US in the coming weeks. The feature is designed to be a protection tool for children, and if any minor users are detected, Google will turn on its age-appropriate experiences.

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In a blog post, the tech giant detailed its age assurance system. Google says it has several measures in place to protect younger users when they use the company's products. However, many teenagers and children provide a fake date of birth while creating an account, and escape this protection system.

The company is now utilising its machine learning (ML) tool, Age Assurance, to identify these users and implement these measures in the US. Instead of looking at the date of birth of the account holder, the model interprets a wide range of signals that are associated with an account. These include the type of information searched by the user or the category of videos watched on YouTube. Google says a combination of these signals can verify the age of the user.

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If the tech giant estimates a user's age to be younger than 18, it will notify them via email as well as whenever they interact with Google products. The notification will inform them that their settings are being changed to include child safety features. This will roll out in the US in the next few weeks to a small subset of users.

Some of these features include enabling YouTube Digital Wellbeing tools, such as reminders to take a break and go to bed, safeguards for content recommendations, and limiting repetitive views of specific content. Google also disables personalised ads and restricts age-sensitive ad categories. The Timeline feature in Maps is also disabled. Minors are also not allowed to access any adult-specific apps from the Play Store.

Google acknowledges that its system can sometimes incorrectly estimate a user to be under the age of 18. In such scenarios, the user is given the option to correct their age, such as uploading a photo of their government ID or performing a selfie-based verification.

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Further reading: Google, Google Accounts, Machine Learning, ML

Akash Dutta Email Akash Dutta

Akash Dutta is a Chief Sub Editor at Gadgets 360. He is particularly interested in the social impact of technological developments and loves reading about emerging fields such as AI, metaverse, and fediverse. In his free time, he can be seen supporting his favourite football club - Chelsea, watching movies and anime, and sharing passionate opinions on food. More