Meta is rolling out a new age-verification system that, according to the company, is intended to make it easier for both the platform itself and its billions of users to adapt to the rapidly expanding number of child-protection requirements imposed by regulators around the world.
The corporation behind Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp is working with Singapore-based start-up K-ID to integrate its AgeKey technology into Meta’s apps. The rollout in several countries is scheduled for next year.
Meta’s move reflects a broader push by the internet industry toward a single, interoperable standard for age verification, as the United Kingdom, Australia, and a number of US states and EU countries introduce or debate new rules aimed at restricting teenagers’ access to adult or potentially harmful content.

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Meta’s global head of safety, Antigone Davis, described AgeKey as “a much more user-friendly option” than existing mechanisms. The system allows users to verify their age once and then reuse those credentials across different compatible apps.
“Around the world, there are different age-assurance systems that regulators want companies like ours to use,” she said. “Right now the market is fragmented, with many variations, and we are trying to take a comprehensive approach.”
Fragmentation in legislation and age-verification methods creates problems not only for internet giants with billion-user audiences—such as Meta, Google, and TikTok—but also for smaller start-ups that are subject to the same requirements despite having far fewer resources.
At the same time, age-checking regimes themselves have drawn criticism from privacy advocates and adult-website operators, who warn that users fear losing anonymity online.
AgeKey relies on the same standardized technology used for passkeys—a password alternative based on facial recognition or fingerprint authentication built into smartphones. Passkeys are supported across all major operating systems and browsers.
Meta currently combines its own age-estimation algorithms with services from third-party providers, including the UK-based company Yoti, to comply with Britain’s Online Safety Act and Australia’s ban on social media use by children under 16.
“If AgeKey is widely adopted, it will bring greater standardization, and age verification will look more consistent across different apps,” Davis said. She added that, ideally, Meta would like responsibility for age verification to sit with operating systems or app stores, rather than with each individual application.
K-ID, whose platform allows services such as Discord and Snap to tailor content based on a user’s age, acquired the French company Opale—the developer of AgeKey—last month.
K-ID says AgeKey is designed to preserve privacy, as it does not allow users to be tracked across different apps and shares with a service only whether a person meets the required age threshold and how that verification was carried out. Specific details such as a user’s exact age, date of birth, or other personal information are not disclosed to the app.
Unlike passkeys, which are overseen by the industry body the Fido Alliance, AgeKey is governed through OpenAge Initiative, a wholly owned K-ID subsidiary.
OpenAge is overseen by a dedicated supervisory board that includes Baroness Joanna Shields, a former senior Facebook executive and founder of the WeProtect Global Alliance, as well as representatives from organizations focused on online safety and privacy.
Julian Corbett, K-ID’s co-founder and head of OpenAge, who has extensive experience in the gaming industry, said the structure had allowed AgeKey to be brought to market more quickly. He added that the option of spinning the unit off into a separate company is now being considered in order to preserve its “neutrality”.
For users, AgeKey is free, while OpenAge charges online platforms a fee of “fractions of a cent” for each verification. For now, the service remains loss-making.
Corbett compared AgeKey to the Visa payments system, which was created by a consortium of banks to simplify transactions between merchants and financial institutions. He said he hopes to persuade other major technology companies to adopt the technology and to bring in age-verification providers that, in some areas, compete with other K-ID products, including Yoti, Jumio, and Persona.
“I believe it is in everyone’s interest across the internet ecosystem not to penalize a user who is simply trying to navigate the web,” he said.