Digital identity company Yoti has today announced a partnership with SuperAwesome, an Epic Games company that provides tools for safer, responsible digital engagement with younger audiences. The two companies are integrating Yoti’s facial age estimation into SuperAwesome’s Kids Web Services (KWS) parent verification tool.
KWS enables developers to verify the identity of parents or guardians when granting their children permission to use features that collect personal information. This process, known as Verifiable Parental Consent (VPC), is needed to confirm that the parent giving permission is, in fact, an adult and ensure compliance with privacy laws.
VPC is typically done by checking a parent’s identity via a credit card transaction, social security number, or a review of their identity documents. But as legislation and safety standards evolve, SuperAwesome has integrated new verification methods into KWS to provide more options for parents going through the VPC process. As part of these efforts, SuperAwesome has integrated Yoti’s facial age estimation as one of the available age verification methods in certain countries.
Yoti’s facial age estimation offers people a secure way of proving they are over a certain age, without sharing their name, ID or credit card information. The technology estimates their age from a selfie. As soon as their age is estimated, the image is deleted and no personal information is ever stored. Once the parent or guardian has proved they are an adult, they can then review the settings and features of a particular game or app and determine whether or not to grant permission for their child to access the service.
“We are proud to work with SuperAwesome to improve online safety for children and give parents a private way to prove their age,” said Julie Dawson, Director of Regulatory and Policy at Yoti. “By integrating Yoti, people can just share the fact that they are an adult, without sharing any other personal information. This data minimised approach protects the privacy of individuals, gives businesses confidence that someone is over the correct age to provide parental consent, and allows platforms to deliver age-appropriate content and experiences.”
“SuperAwesome is excited to be working with Yoti to provide parents with a safe and trusted way to prove their age during the parent verification process. Given not everyone owns or has access to an ID or credit card, Yoti makes KWS more inclusive. In the time since integrating Yoti into KWS, over 60% of parents are choosing facial age estimation in the countries where it is available,” said Paul Nunn, Chief Strategy Officer at SuperAwesome.
Notes to editors
About Yoti
Yoti is a digital identity technology company that makes it safer for people to prove who they are, verifying identities and trusted credentials online and in-person. They now provide verification solutions across the globe, spanning identity verification, age assurance, document eSigning, access management, and authentication. Yoti provides a comprehensive set of age assurance solutions to meet business, market and regulatory requirements. Yoti is the leading global provider of age assurance, having performed over 593 million checks using its facial age estimation service across gaming, gambling, retail, dating, social media, live streaming, e-commerce and adult content services. Yoti is certified to ISO/IEC 27001:2013 for ID Verification Services, ISAE 3000 (SOC 2) Type 2 certified for its technical and organisational security processes. For more information, please visit www.yoti.com.
About SuperAwesome
Founded in 2013 and acquired by Epic Games in 2020, SuperAwesome is building a safer internet for the next generation. Used by hundreds of creators, content owners, and brands, our award-winning technology enables safe, authentic digital engagement with one billion young people from Gen Alpha and Gen Z every month.
Our Kids Web Services (KWS) developer tools are offered to all partners free of charge, enabling them to engage audiences of all ages. KWS includes Parent Verification and our ParentGraph, the world’s largest network of pre-verified parents, with over 16 million parents and counting.
