This talk is part of the TrustCon 2024 Child Safety Lightning Talk session. Lightning talk sessions are 50 minutes long, featuring a series of short 5-7 minute talks back-to-back in the same room, followed by Q&A at the end.

When are online age assurance measures appropriate? Using a risk-based approach, we answer this question by exploring when, how, and why people want these measures to be implemented. Our survey analyzes people’s perceived risk associated with websites that provide a range of products and services. Our findings reveal that participants strongly support age assurance measures for firearms sales, tobacco/vaping, gambling, dating and pornography websites. They also support websites requiring government IDs to perform age assurance for most types of websites; however, they do not want government IDs collected on social media sites or subscription services. We highlight categories of websites that should be prioritized for age assurance, as well as participants’ questions and concerns. Our results are not only relevant to websites considering implementing age assurance measures but also to tech policymakers developing child safety policy.