“Such scanning may be able to tell the difference between a 50-year-old and a 15-year-old but it’s effectively useless for determining the difference between a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old.”
Age verification vendors swore a face scan would spare everyone the ID upload. Ofcom’s own report says the scan fails for exactly the kids near the line. Its fix is a buffer age, which sends every 16 and 17 year old to a second method. The second method is a passport. The UK is building a papers-please checkpoint for teenagers and calling it safety.