For years, tech companies successfully resisted pressure from child safety advocates to do more to keep kids off their services, claiming technical limitations would make any attempt to restrict access for teens ​impractical, overly broad or a security risk.

Also Read | A social media ban will not save our children

Now, a growing list of governments is concluding those hurdles are not insurmountable, and pushing ahead with aggressive new age-checking requirements for social networks, AI chatbots and porn purveyors alike. Three months after Australia launched a ‌landmark ban on teen social media accounts, regulators across Europe, in Brazil and in a handful of U.S. states are moving to emulate it.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, seen ​as a likely Democratic candidate for president in 2028, joined the call last month, while US Republican President Donald Trump is also reportedly “taking an interest” in age limits, according to his daughter-in-law. Spurring ⁠them along are escalating concerns over online abuse and teen mental health, and a recent outcry over the spread of AI-generated child sexual abuse images, as well as increased confidence in the capabilities of “age assurance” software that backers say can suss out a person’s approximate age using facial analysis, parental approval, ID checks and other digital clues.

Recent advancements in artificial intelligence have boosted the effectiveness and slashed the cost of those age-gating tools, according to Reuters interviews with more than a dozen regulators, child safety ‌advocates, independent researchers and vendors who perform the age checks for big tech companies, including TikTok, Facebook owner Meta and OpenAI.

“The age-assurance market has matured a lot in the last couple of years,” said Ariel Fox Johnson, a senior adviser to San Francisco-based Common Sense Media, a children’s online advocacy group. She pointed to improving technology, as well as the establishment of trade ‌groups, technical protocols and certification schemes standardising evaluation of the various tools’ effectiveness.

Social media companies now can often confidently guess a person’s age group using digital breadcrumbs like the year an account was ‌established ⁠or the type of content it views, they said, while a burgeoning industry of age assurance vendors like Yoti, k-ID and Persona offer additional layers of checks via automated tools like ⁠face scans and machine-based analysis of government IDs. At the app-store level, too, Apple and Alphabet’s Google have rolled out tools that allow parents to indicate their child’s age range to app developers.

“The tech definitely has gotten better, not just for age verification specifically but for overall identity verification,” said Merritt Maxim, a vice president at Massachusetts-based research firm Forrester. “That, in turn, has driven down the average cost of verification, so that where you were using it five years ago only for higher-value types of transactions, now you can use it for ​pretty much anything without a significant financial impact.”

Vendors generally charge well under $1 per check for ‌basic machine-only age assurance tools, though for large volumes the price is often as low as single-digit cents, said industry executives. More costly traditional processes like human confirmation and triangulation of personal data that were standard a decade ago are still available at a premium, but are needed less frequently, the executives said.

Independent evaluations back up executives’ descriptions of rapid progress. According to an ongoing study run by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), face-scanning software from firms including Yoti – which performs checks for TikTok and Meta’s Facebook, Instagram and Threads – were off in their age estimations by an average of 4.1 years as ‌of initial testing in 2014, while by 2024 that average had dropped to 3.1 years, and is currently 2.5 years.

UK-based Yoti said the performance of its latest face analysis model ​due out in April surpasses that of models it submitted for the NIST and Australian studies, with an average error of only 1.04 years for kids in regulators’ target age range of 14 to 18. Persona, a San Francisco-based identity verification firm used by OpenAI and Reddit, touts a similar average error of 1.77 years for the 13-to-17-year-old age range.

A ⁠report commissioned by the Australian government likewise determined last year that photo-based age estimation products were broadly accurate, although it acknowledged that users within three years of the law’s age cutoff of 16 were in a “grey zone where system uncertainty is higher” and recommended they be diverted to “supplementary assurance methods, such as ID-based verification or parental consent.”

The systems also struggle more with certain skin types, with grainier imagery captured by older phones and when using privacy-protective “on-device” data processing, ‌which entails performing a check entirely on the person’s phone without sending their data out to a cloud server, executives said.

For instance, systems using on-device processing are less likely to catch attempts by enterprising youngsters to appear older than they are, said Rick Song, CEO of San Francisco-based Persona. Common tricks used by teens include donning masks, applying heavy makeup or fake facial hair, or scanning the plastic faces of action figures instead of their own, he said.

Still, said executives, facial age estimation can provide a digital version of the kind of screening performed daily at bars and liquor stores in the offline world.

“If you look young, you can be challenged, and you may have to provide your ID,” said Robin Tombs, CEO of London-based Yoti.

He added that social media services generally require fewer face scans and ID checks than porn or gambling sites because they already have reams of personal information on their users. This means they can lean more on an age assurance method called “inference” — involving analysis of online activities, connected financial information and other signals — to satisfy regulators’ requirements.

The 10 social media companies included ‌in Australia’s teen ban all declined Reuters requests for data on the effectiveness of their age assurance tools.

Australia’s internet regulator, the eSafety commissioner, has said it will collect population data for two years to assess the ban’s impact and publish first ​results later this year. Already, companies have locked 4.7 million suspected underage accounts since the law came into effect in December, it said, although industry participants have told Reuters that some of the accounts were likely underage Google accounts that were prevented from logging in to YouTube, regardless of whether they were active.

Meta said it took down about 550,000 Instagram, Facebook and Threads ⁠accounts suspected to be underage in the first weeks of the Australian ban. Snapchat said it took down about 415,000.

Regulators elsewhere are watching carefully. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is set to discuss age verification during ⁠an upcoming visit to Canberra, according to a European lawmaker briefed on her agenda. The United Kingdom, which requires age verification for porn websites and is considering tightening child safety rules for social media and AI chatbots as well, is likewise swapping notes with Australian counterparts.

Early results from the Australian experiment should be taken with a grain of salt, as companies affected by the ban generally were doing ‌the bare minimum to comply with legal requirements, said Iain Corby, the executive director of the Age Verification Providers Association, a trade association that represents about three dozen vendors including Yoti and Persona.

In some cases, he added, the social media companies asked AVPA member firms to turn off controls that make the age checks more robust.

“They are extremely worried this is going to be contagious and be a policy ​that is adopted around the world, so they are not really motivated for it to be a glowing success,” he said.

“They are testing the regulator’s patience to see what they can get away with.”

US-based United Airlines is spreading Christmas cheer by offering free ‘Fantasy flights’ to children in need to the ‘North Pole’ to see Santa Claus. The flights will depart from 13 cities including Los Angeles London and Tokyo among others. One of the first “Fantasy Flight” took off from Honolulu on Saturday (Dec 7) bringing some smiles to those in need. “Santa has invited us to Christmas Island and all his elves are waiting there on the ground for us,” the pilot of Flight 3894, announced over the intercom.

Families that have children with cancer or who have been orphaned by the loss of someone on active duty are taken aboard a short flight that loops back around and lands right where they started. However, upon exiting, children are transported to Santa’s hometown, the “North Pole” — a fantasy winter wonderland created by United airport employees and local volunteers who “transform an average airport gate or maintenance hangar into a sea of twinkling lights, sparkling Christmas trees and Santa himself – along with his elves”.

“We’ve stocked up on de-icing fluid to fly from even more cities. United is honoured to uplift children and their families through the joy of the holiday season. Making the North Pole closer than ever is one of the many ways we can show support for the communities where we live, work and fly,” said Kate Gebo, United’s Executive Vice President of Human Resources.

Also Read | These Are The Best And Worst Airlines Of 2024, According To AirHelp Score Report

Internet reacts

Social media users lauded the move by United Airlines and called it a heartwarming gesture that would mean a lot to the kids.

“That is the nicest most heartwarming story. Thank you, United for spreading true Christmas joy!” said one user while another added: “What a wonderful experience for these children & families…ENJOY!”

A third commented: “Christmas is the season of miracles. Good on United to bring cheer to these kids.”

Flight schedule:

• Honolulu (HNL) December 5
• Washington-Dulles (IAD) December 7
• Houston Bush (IAH) December 7
• Los Angeles (LAX) December 7
• London (LHR) December 7
• Chicago-O’Hare (ORD) December 7
• San Francisco (SFO) December 7
• Tokyo (NRT) December 8
• Cleveland (CLE) December 10
• Fort Lauderdale (FLL) December 10
• Guam (GUM) December 13
• Denver (DEN) December 14
• Newark (EWR) December 14

As the nation celebrates Children’s Day, can we look a child in the eye and say: ‘Happy Children’s Day’. Have we let the kids of our nation down.

The Union government had sanctioned an Eklavya school near 11-year-old Sulekha’s home. Today, Sulekha is 16. The school in her neighbourhood is still not functional. This is true for two out of five schools sanctioned under the Eklavya Model Residential School scheme. Sulekha is forced to enrol in the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) located in an ‘educationally backward area’. Her favourite class isn’t held because the teacher’s position has not yet been filled by the administration that reports to the Union government. As of July 2024, there are over 4,000 teacher vacancies in KGBVs. The highest vacancies are in Uttar Pradesh. Even for subjects with assigned teachers, classes do not take place daily—teachers are frequently absent. It is common practice that even for a five-day week, teachers take an extra day off.

A Grim Childhood

Sulekha is in class 10 now. She struggles to read texts of what a student in class 2 should know. She is unable to solve maths problems that are from the class 3 level. One out of four rural youth, between the ages of 14 to 18, demonstrate a similar gap in learning. Research suggests that half the students in this age group are unable to solve arithmetic that is taught in class five.

To support her family, Sulekha has been forced to drop out of school. One in every five students is compelled to do so. As an alternative to school education, she then enrols herself in the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY)—a “flagship” scheme by the Union government, launched to upskill youth in order to improve the employment opportunities available to them. Sulekha completes all the requirements of the programme. She is even awarded with a certificate. But nothing changes. Like half of the certificate holders, she finds no job.

Coping with all this pressure at a young age can be traumatic. On paper, teenagers with mental health issues can seek help through Manodarpan, a mental health support helpline launched by the Union government during the pandemic. A good idea but poorly implemented. Calls to the helpline (844 844 0632) almost always go unanswered. There are just 366 counsellors listed in Manodarpan’s directory across the country. The District Mental Health Programme is no better. Just 1,178 psychiatrists and 513 trained psychologists in total.

Thousands Of Sulekhas

Sulekha’s story is not a one-off. It is the story of hundreds of thousands of youngsters in India. Thirty-five students commit suicide every day (the actual numbers could be even higher).

Many such students depend on schemes like Samagra Shiksha, which provides for teacher salaries, fees for those enrolled under Right To Education, uniforms and school infrastructure. However, the funds under the scheme for states ruled by non-BJP parties like Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Punjab, West Bengal, and Delhi have either been stalled or denied. Why? Is it because they objected to a certain suffix in the name of the scheme? The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 advocates for an allocation of 6% of the GDP to education. Good intentions, but the reality is a mirage. In 2023-24, the Union allocated 0.44% of GDP to education. This was reduced to 0.37% in this year’s Budget. Sorry Sulekha, we failed you.

Research credit: Dheemunt Jain

(Derek O’Brien, MP, leads the Trinamool Congress in the Rajya Sabha)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author

A recent study found a worrying correlation between the use of personal care products including lotions, hair oils, hair conditioners, ointments, and sunscreen, and higher levels of phthalates in young children, according to the new study by George Mason University College of Public Health.

According to the study, depending on the children’s racial and ethnic origin, different quantities of these chemicals-known for their endocrine-disrupting qualities-were identified. Phthalates are frequently utilised in plastics to improve their flexibility and durability; they are also found in a lot of personal hygiene products.

Researchers are concerned about possible effects on children’s development during important growth phases since these chemicals mimic, inhibit, or interact with the body’s natural hormones.

“This is the first study to suggest that different skin care products used by young children may differentially increase exposure to endocrine-disrupting phthalates and phthalate replacements in young children,” said the primary investigator of the study, Michael S Bloom, professor in the Department of Global and Community Health at George Mason University’s College of Public Health.

The study collected medical data from 630 children between the ages of four and eight from 10 different sites across the United States, including a clinical examination and a urinalysis. The child’s parent or guardian was also asked to complete a survey within 24 hours prior to the child’s examination, which included questions regarding the child’s sociodemographic information (race/ethnic identity, sex assigned at birth, etc.). It also asked parents to list all the skin care products, including lotions, soaps, shampoos, oils, and cosmetics, that were applied to the child’s skin in the 24 hours prior to their examination, with as much specificity as possible regarding the product type and brand or generic name.

“We found associations between recent use of different skin care products and higher concentrations of phthalate and phthalate-replacement compounds,” said Bloom. “There were different relationships between the use of skin care products and the endocrine-disrupting chemicals in children depending on their racial and ethnic identities and their sex assigned at birth. We also found that distinct patterns of using multiple skin care products were predictive of higher concentrations of phthalates and phthalate replacements.”

“The results can inform policies to address the use of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in skin care products that may be used on children and to help advise parents’ decisions about using products to limit their children’s exposure to potential developmental toxicants,” said Bloom.

The research emphasizes raising public awareness of the possible dangers associated with kids’ regular exposure to these chemicals, especially in the early years when hormonal balance is crucial for healthy development.

The number of people with food allergies has varying estimates between under 1% and over 9% of children

They also found that a third of those people at risk of anaphylaxis – a life-threatening allergic reaction – don’t carry adrenaline autoinjector “pens”, such as EpiPens. People in deprived areas were found to be less likely to have been prescribed these life-saving injectors.

The true number of people with food allergies has been difficult to establish, with estimates varying between under 1% and over 9% of children. This is because several methods are used to estimate the frequency of food allergies, including using either the number of prescriptions of adrenaline pens, self-reporting, or blood tests to identify telltale antibodies.

Self-reporting is the least reliable method because many people confuse food intolerance with allergy, as is evident from a recent report by the UK’s Food Standards Agency.

Of the over 30% of adults who reported an adverse reaction to foods, only 6% were subsequently confirmed to have a true food allergy. To bridge this gap in understanding how common food allergies are, the new study from Imperial College took a much broader approach to better estimate the incidence of food allergy.

Population healthcare data from over 7.5 million people in England and a combination of clinical criteria were used to identify people with food allergies in these health records.

People were considered to have an allergy if doctors indicated they had either had a possible or probable allergy or if they had been prescribed an adrenaline pen or both. Using this combination, the number of people with food allergies was shown to have doubled in a decade. Curiously, since 2018, levels have plateaued somewhat at around 4% in preschool children, 2.4% in school-aged children, and under 1% in adults.

The study, published in The Lancet Public Health, used a broad range of criteria to identify people with food allergies. Not all cases were confirmed by medical professionals using additional tests, such as the presence of antibodies in blood or food-challenge tests where people are given increasing amounts of certain foods to see if an allergic reaction occurs.

Some types of food allergy may have been missed, such as pollen food allergy syndrome. This occurs when people with specific pollen allergies eat some raw foods, including certain stoned fruits, that cause mild irritant symptoms, such as itching of the mouth. Still, there are important questions as to why food allergies have been rising, and why they may now be plateauing.

Puzzling

The trend in the increased rate of allergies in developed countries has puzzled scientists for years. The “old friend’s hypothesis” is one theory that may account for the growing incidence of chronic conditions such as allergies.

This hypothesis considers the role of the microbiome (the collection of helpful bacteria, fungi and viruses that live in and on us), infections and the environment in shaping our immune response and causing it to misfire.

Evidence to support this theory is accumulating. For example, studies show that high use of antibiotics in early childhood as the immune system and microbiome are developing is linked to a greater likelihood of allergy in later life.

Pollution exposure can also enhance the risk of allergy and worsen the severity of symptoms.

The food we were exposed to in early life may be important in determining if we develop an allergy. Previous advice from the UK government about avoiding early exposure to peanuts and eggs may inadvertently be linked to the rise in food allergy to peanuts and eggs.

Conversely, studies show that early exposure before the age of five to peanuts and eggs is linked to a reduced likelihood of developing an allergy.

The advice in the UK to avoid peanuts and eggs during pregnancy and early childhood was changed in 2009, but the trials showing the positive effects of early exposure to eggs and peanuts were only published in 2015 and 2016. However, it is possible that the plateauing incidence of food allergy cases is linked to changes in advice and the published infant food exposure trials.

Diagnosis is only part of the story. People also need to be able to effectively manage their condition. This requires patients to have access to the right advice and support from experts, such as dietitians, as well as the drugs needed to halt an anaphylactic attack.

For babies diagnosed with a food allergy, there is no good evidence that incrementally reintroducing the food that causes the allergy can retrain the immune system and might help the child overcome their allergy. However, this must only be done under the guidance of a medical team.

The new study showed that allergy care was largely managed at GP practices in England. However, GP clinics may lack the specialist resources needed for proper allergy support, such as safely re-introducing foods.

It is clear that people in the UK with allergies need better support.

Sheena Cruickshank, Professor in Immunology, University of Manchester

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Sydney:

Australian children with potentially deadly peanut allergies will be offered life-saving treatment in a nationwide programme touted as a world first.

Eligible babies will receive daily doses of peanut powder for two years to build up their tolerance, said officials announcing the initiative on Wednesday.

Over time, the infants will be given increasing doses in the hope of reducing their sensitivity to peanuts, under the supervision of doctors at 10 paediatric hospitals around the country.

It is the first national peanut allergy treatment programme offered in hospitals outside of a clinical trial setting, said Kirsten Perrett, head of oral immunotherapy at the National Allergy Centre of Excellence.

At the end of the two years, a food allergy test will determine if the treatment has led to a remission.

“Ultimately we want to change the trajectory of allergic disease in Australia so that more children can go to school without the risk of a life-threatening peanut reaction,” Perrett said.

Previously, families have been told to ensure their children strictly avoid foods with peanuts.

Australian children have some of the highest rates of food allergies in the world.

Peanut allergies affect three percent of Australian children by the time they are 12 months old, government data shows.

Of those, only 20 percent will outgrow their allergy by the time they are teenagers.

Nine-month-old Hunter Chatwin, who is among those in the free treatment programme, started developing hives after eating peanut butter.

“We are taking part in the programme to try and improve his chance of being able to safely eat peanut in the future,” Hunter’s mother Kirsten said.

“Many families are desperate to protect their children from allergic reactions and anaphylaxis,” she said.

“To have this programme available and free at public hospitals is a game-changer.”

If successful, the programme will be rolled out more broadly, including in regional and remote areas.

Deaths from peanut allergies are rare in Australia, but almost 20 percent of the population has an allergic disease, data from Australia’s leading allergy institute found.

This figure is estimated to grow by 70 percent by 2050, impacting 7.7 million Australians.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Police secure the area, where a man has been detained and a knife has been seized after a number of people were injured in a reported stabbing, in Southport, Merseyside, England, Monday July 29, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

A teenage boy with a knife attacked a children’s dance and yoga class in northwest England on Monday, killing two children and wounding 11 other people in a “ferocious” rampage that sent bloodied children running into a street to escape the horror, police and witnesses said.

A 17-year-old boy was arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder in the attack in Southport, a seaside town near Liverpool, Merseyside Police said. The motive was not clear, but police said detectives were not treating the attack as terror-related.

Nine children were wounded, six of them in critical condition. Two wounded adults who tried to protect them also were in critical condition, police said.

“We believe the adults who were injured were bravely trying to protect the children who were being attacked,” Police Chief Constable Serena Kennedy said.

The Taylor Swift-themed workshop was held on the first week of school vacation for children aged about 6 to 11. An advertisement for the two-hour session promised yoga, dance and bracelet making.

Witnesses described hearing blood-curdling screams and seeing children covered in blood.

“They were in the road, running from the nursery,” said Bare Varathan, who owns a shop nearby. “They had been stabbed, here, here, here, everywhere,” indicating neck, back and chest.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the attack “horrendous and deeply shocking.”

Merseyside Police said officers were called at about noon to an address in Southport, a seaside town of about 100,000 people near Liverpool. It called it a “major incident” but said there was no wider threat to the public.

“When they arrived they were shocked to find that multiple people, many of whom were children, had been subjected to a ferocious attack and had suffered serious injuries,” Kennedy said.

Colin Parry, an auto body shop owner, said most of the stabbing victims appeared to be young girls.

“The mothers are coming here now and screaming,” Parry said. “It is like a scene from a horror movie. … It’s like something from America, not like sunny Southport.”

The suspect, who has not been identified, lived in a village about 5 miles (8 kilometers) from the site of the attack, police said. He was originally from Cardiff, Wales.

Ryan Carney, who lives with his mother in the street, said his mother saw emergency workers carrying children “covered in red, covered in blood. She said she could see the stab wounds in the backs of the children.”

“All this stuff never really happens around here,” he said. “You hear of it, stabbings and stuff like that in major cities, your Manchesters, your Londons. This is sunny Southport. That’s what people call it. The sun’s out. It’s a lovely place to be.”

Britain’s worst attack on children occurred in 1996, when 43-year-old Thomas Hamilton shot 16 kindergarten pupils and their teacher dead in a school gymnasium in Dunblane, Scotland. The U.K. subsequently banned the private ownership of almost all handguns.

Mass shootings and murders with firearms are rare in Britain, where knives were used in about 40% of homicides in the year to March 2023. Several headline-grabbing attacks and a recent rise in knife crime have stoked anxieties and led to calls for the government to do more to clamp down on bladed weapons.