Social Media Needs App Store-Level Age Checks, Says Meta's Joel Kaplan

In a recent interview, Meta's vice president of global policy, Joel Kaplan, advocated for the adoption of an "app-store" level check for age verification and consent management of users below the age of 18.

This approach, he believes, would be a more "elegant and effective solution" compared to other methods like Aadhar verification or using documents stored in digital public infrastructure like DigiLocker.

Kaplan's comments come in response to the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, which was passed in August this year and mandates the verification of the age of children and obtaining explicit consent from their parents for data processing. He also emphasized the need for industry-wide collaboration to address challenges like deep fake and synthetically altered content, suggesting the use of visible watermarks to identify such content.

With elections approaching in India, Indonesia, the US, and other major democracies, Meta is also focusing on combating misinformation that could influence polls. While acknowledging that instances of deep fakes will likely occur, Kaplan assured that the company will make its best efforts to contain and remove such content. He also stressed the importance of educating users to be informed consumers of online information.