Children could be blocked from social media as well as porn sites in Australian trial of age check technology

The federal government has extended its trial of age assurance technology to assess how young teenagers could be restricted from accessing social media as well as porn sites. Photograph: PA

The Australian government has expanded its trial of age assurance technology to look at blocking children from accessing social media platforms as well as porn sites, and is talking to companies including Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, about taking part.

A $6.5m trial of the technology announced in May’s federal budget was originally aimed at testing technologies and methods for keeping under-18s from accessing adult content such as pornography.