Main points
- British teenagers are bypassing age verification systems by drawing on mustaches with eyebrow pencil to fool artificial intelligence algorithms.
- The UK's Online Safety Act has failed to fully prevent children from accessing dangerous content.
Age verification systems proved powerless against children / Collage of Channel 24/Unsplash/Freepik
British teenagers have found a surprisingly simple way to bypass modern online verification systems. Using ordinary eyebrow pencils, children are misleading artificial intelligence algorithms, which calls into question the effectiveness of new digital security laws.
What did teenagers come up with to bypass protection systems?
The introduction of the Online Safety Act in the UK in July 2025 was supposed to be a landmark moment in protecting children in the digital space. The document obliged social networks and search engines to implement stricter age verification, restrict access to harmful material and improve mechanisms for reporting violations. However, the early results of the law’s implementation show that a tech-savvy younger generation is finding inventive ways to jump over these additional barriers, writes GBHackers.
A May report by the British online safety organization Internet Matters revealed startling facts: about a third of children in the UK have already learned to bypass security measures such as age verification. The most discussed method has become the so-called “moustache hack”. As systems often require users to take a selfie to estimate their age using artificial intelligence, teenagers have started using cosmetics to visually add years to themselves.
I caught my son [12 years old] drawing a mustache on his face with eyebrow pencil, and the system verified him as 15 years old,
– said an anonymous mother in one of the cases cited in the report.
This incident highlights a critical weakness in facial age estimation technologies, which rely excessively on visual cues rather than robust identity verification.
According to a survey of 1,000 children and their parents, almost half of respondents (46%) believe that age verification is easy to bypass. In addition to drawing on a mustache, children use fake birth dates, fake accounts, face masking and, although less commonly, VPN services. The most common age verification requests children encounter are on platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, Google and Roblox.
But there are also successes
Despite these vulnerabilities, the report points to some progress. About half of children surveyed said they now see more age-appropriate content, and 40% of parents and children feel the internet has become somewhat safer since the law came into effect.
Minors themselves are said to be largely supportive of such measures: 90% of those who have noticed improvements in moderation perceive it positively. They note the usefulness of clearer rules, restrictions on contact with strangers, and limits on high-risk features.
Challenges still remain
But it’s still far from ideal. Within just one month of the new child protection codes coming into effect, nearly half of minors reported encountering online harm, including violence, hate speech, and content that negatively impacts their body image. These are exactly the areas that the law should be cracking down on, writes Fast Company.
Privacy issues
Beyond the effectiveness of the verifications themselves, there is a pressing privacy issue. Parents are increasingly concerned about how their children’s biometric data is collected and stored. There is a fear that sensitive information could be reused by government agencies or private companies. This has led to calls for centralized verification solutions that better protect privacy, rather than scattered data collection on each individual platform.
What conclusions does the report draw?
The report concludes that the online safety law has only begun the process of transforming the digital environment, but has not yet brought about “fundamental change.” Harmful content remains widespread, and issues such as excessive screen time, the risks of artificial intelligence, and manipulative platform design still remain poorly regulated.
Malware Intelligence experts warn that until systems become resistant to even simple tactics like painted mustaches, a true balance between security and privacy will not be achieved.
You will also be interested to know: why Europe and the USA are massively implementing age verification
Europe and the US have been actively moving towards the implementation of age verification systems on the Internet in recent years. The reason is a sharp increase in concerns about the impact of social networks, video services and platforms with “adult” content on children and adolescents. Regulators, psychologists, doctors and politicians are increasingly talking about addiction to social networks, mental health problems, cyberbullying, sexual exploitation of children and uncontrolled access of minors to harmful content.
In the European Union, the key driver has been the Digital Services Act, or DSA. It places an obligation on major online platforms to protect underage users. In 2025, the European Commission presented a prototype of a single age verification system for EU countries (but, by the way, it was hacked in two minutes, revealing a bunch of security gaps). It should work as a separate digital tool or app through which the user confirms that he is 18 years old. At the same time, the system is designed in such a way that it does not transmit the user's full personal data to the sites, writes the Digital Strategy website, which was launched by the European Commission.
Denmark, France, Spain, Italy and Greece were the first to agree to the test. In the future, the system should integrate with the European digital wallet EUDI Wallet.
In the US, the situation is more chaotic, as there is no single federal mechanism. Instead, individual states pass their own laws. Some of them concern adult sites, others – social networks and even operating systems. For example, California passed the Digital Age Assurance Act, which obliges operating systems to determine the age category of the user at the stage of creating an account.
Utah, Texas, Louisiana, and other states have laws in place or are in the works that would require websites to verify age through documents, bank cards, or digital ID. Some lawmakers even want to restrict the use of VPNs if they help circumvent age restrictions, writes Tom's Hardware.
A separate direction is pressure on Meta, TikTok and other social networks. In the US, there are more and more lawsuits against platforms due to harm to children. For example, the authorities of the state of New Mexico are demanding from Meta large-scale changes to Facebook and Instagram, including mandatory age verification, parental control of accounts and changes to recommendation algorithms, Reuters notes.
At the same time, these systems have drawn serious criticism. Human rights activists and digital security experts warn that mass age verification could create a new infrastructure of digital surveillance. Critics believe that even if states declare that they are protecting children, in practice millions of people will be forced to hand over their documents or biometric data to private companies. A large study has even been published about this, which can be read on arXiv.
Why is this relevant for Ukraine?
Ukraine does not yet have a full-fledged online age verification system, but the global trend is gradually pushing the country to such solutions, writes 24 Channel . Especially considering that the European Union is actually forming new standards of digital regulation.
If Ukraine continues to move towards harmonizing digital legislation with the EU, the issue of age verification on the Internet will become almost inevitable. Without it, it will be difficult to implement any restrictions for children on social networks or on platforms with adult content.
An additional factor is the growing debate about the impact of TikTok, Instagram, Telegram, and YouTube on Ukrainian children. Politicians, educators, and psychologists are increasingly talking about social media addiction, loss of concentration, information manipulation, and risks to the psyche of adolescents.
In fact, if Ukraine ever wants to really restrict children's access to social media, it will have to create mechanisms for digital age verification. Otherwise, any ban will remain a formality that can be bypassed by simply clicking the “I'm 18” button.
In addition, similar discussions are already taking place in neighboring countries. For example, Poland is preparing a bill to ban social media for children under 15, and they plan to place responsibility for age verification on the platforms themselves.
What is known about the possible ban on social media for children in Ukraine?
As of 2026, there is no law in Ukraine that directly prohibits children from using social media. There is also no officially registered bill to completely ban TikTok, Instagram, or other platforms for minors.
However, the topic itself is already being actively discussed in the Ukrainian media and political environment. The discussions have intensified significantly after similar initiatives in Europe and Australia, where the authorities have directly spoken about banning social networks for children under 16.
Ukrainian media and television are increasingly discussing the need to restrict social media for minors. People's deputies, psychologists, and child safety experts are joining the discussions.
At the same time, Ukraine is already moving towards stricter regulation of the digital space in general. For example, the Verkhovna Rada is discussing legislative initiatives to regulate social networks and messenger platforms.
There are also periodic initiatives to restrict smartphones in schools. This indicates a general trend – the state is increasingly actively discussing control of the digital environment for children and adolescents.