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The Australian government has announced a A$6.5 million聽聽to restrict minors鈥� access to pornography. It鈥檚 part of a $1 billion package to address聽. And it now comes alongside a proposal to聽.

The government will consider various聽聽methods, such as matching drivers鈥� licences, credit cards or passports against government databases. It may also explore analysing biometric information (such as faces, fingerprints or voices), and profiling online behaviour (like username, browsing history and cookie data). Each has different privacy risks.

While the government refers to these tools as 鈥渁ge assurance鈥�, many of them are more accurately called 鈥渁ge estimation鈥�.

Published in聽, our new study into one common facial age estimation tool shows such technologies are unreliable, and have a racial and gender bias.

They are also undesirable 鈥� they make pornography a聽聽and divert resources from evidence-based strategies that can actually help.

The link between pornography and sexual violence is聽. In part, this is because existing research often聽听补苍诲听assumes porn causes misogyny.

聽is not a homogeneous category. It includes horror, comedy, romance and documentary, and聽.

Sexually explicit media can play a role in聽聽of people excluded from mainstream media.

Despite this,聽聽to justify the increasing regulation of pornography. This includes construing porn as a聽. The idea of 鈥減orn addiction鈥� has also been shown to聽.

The idea to 鈥溾�� was first raised by then-Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton in 2019, the same year the government tried to introduce a聽聽to match people鈥檚 identities across government agencies.

Furthermore, research into聽聽shows that young adults are聽. Pornography can be a source of聽.

Civil society groups have cited聽聽about age estimation tech. These include:

• accessibility issues for people without identity documents
• the potential burden on small, low-income websites
• queries about what data could be collected, sold or exploited
• and the likelihood of circumvention.

In the聽, young people 鈥渆xpressed their right to safe, autonomous sexual development and exploration鈥�. They were concerned age assurance is of limited efficacy, and comes with聽.

Age estimation software that uses facial recognition relies on stereotypical indicators of age,聽, wrinkles and jawlines. These are highly variable 鈥� for example, wrinkles can be聽.

厂迟耻诲颈别蝉听听迟丑补迟听聽often has a significant聽.

In our research, our colleague聽聽used a聽聽to analyse a聽. He found the model was most accurate in estimating age in the 鈥淐aucasian鈥� category and least accurate in the 鈥淎frican鈥� category.

Boys were more likely to be misclassified than girls, especially in the 0鈥�12 age bracket. People aged 26 and over were generally misclassified as younger, sometimes by as much as 40 years.

Age estimation is already a fraught task when done by humans, who regularly聽. It is no better when done by machines.

Overall, age-based restrictions on access are unlikely to stop people from viewing porn. Teenagers can聽聽and may even get around age checks using the dark web, putting them at聽.

Young people often聽聽from their parents. Sometimes, blurry understandings of 鈥渉arm鈥� from the media and angry responses from parents聽聽more than the actual porn they encounter.

The best approach to supporting healthy sexual development for young people is to 鈥溾�� with them about sex, especially if they can do so openly聽.

Part of healthy sexual development is understanding how sexual representations are聽. Porn literacy 鈥� a subset of media literacy 鈥� is about聽聽rather than taking an abstinence-based approach.

Restricted-access approaches make a crude distinction between people over or under 18. But the various age groups under 18 have very different needs in relation to sex and relationships. Importantly, this includes 16- to 17-year-olds who聽can聽legally consent to sex.

For pre-pubescents, the biggest risk factor involving pornography is when adults use these materials聽. This shows governments must invest in community-led prevention and frontline services.

Meanwhile, post-pubescents need comprehensive sex and relationship education appropriate for their development. Its focus should be on providing the聽, including about consent, communication, gender diversity, non-monogamy, sexual experimentation聽.

Instead of barring under-18s from all porn, a more impactful approach would be to facilitate access to diverse sexual representations. This includes measures such as preventing聽聽and supporting worker-owned聽聽to flourish. It includes ending聽听补苍诲听.

Importantly, addressing gendered violence requires聽, who remain the most affected by family, police and carceral violence.

Age estimation for pornography access is not an easy fix for gendered violence. It will not support young people to contextualise the sexual media they come across. It will not address structural factors behind gendered homicide and sexual violence, including racism and misogyny. In reality, it will only introduce more problems, and at great cost 鈥� political and financial.

Professor Alan McKee is an expert on entertainment and healthy sexual development.聽He has published on healthy sexual development and entertainment education for healthy sexuality in journals including the New Media and Society, Archives of Sexual Behavior, the International Journal of Sexual Health, the Journal of Sex Research and Sex Education. This story was first published on . Hero photo: Adobe Stock.