Age verification technologies are tools used to confirm or estimate a person’s age before granting access to age‑restricted products or online content. Methods range from document or database checks (government IDs, carrier or payment records) to biometric/AI age‑estimation (face scans, behavioral signals) and credential/parental approaches; businesses and platforms use them to block minors and meet legal and policy obligations (e.g., COPPA, online‑safety rules).
The workshop is aimed at a broad set of stakeholders: researchers and academics, industry (platforms and age‑verification vendors), consumer‑privacy and child‑safety advocates, government regulators and policy experts — and it is open to the public so interested parents, journalists and others can attend or watch.
The FTC moved the January 28 workshop to online‑only because of expected inclement weather in the Washington, D.C. area.
No registration is required; the event is free and open to the public. The FTC will post a livestream/webcast link on the workshop event page (and on ftc.gov) the morning of January 28 so people can watch online.
Yes. The FTC has posted the agenda and speaker biographies on the event page (agenda PDF and speaker‑biography files). The agency said it will post a webcast link the morning of the event and events may be photographed/videotaped and materials may be posted on ftc.gov afterward.
The workshop is organized by the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
Yes. Privacy and security are explicit topics: the event is tagged with "Privacy and Security" and "Children's Privacy," the agenda includes discussion of COPPA and regulatory issues, and several panels and panelists focus on privacy/data‑protection implications of age‑verification tools.