Ofcom's report on use of app stores by children

Ofcom’s report on use of app stores by children highlights an important (and perhaps less emphasised) point in relation to age assurance.

In addition to “highly effective age assurance methods”:

“App stores would also need reliable information about the age suitability and risk of children encountering harm on the apps they make available”

Age assurance methods alone are therefore not sufficient. Highly effective methods are also required for the classification of apps by developers and app store providers in order to “consistently apply effective age-based protections”.

Robust and consistent classification of apps is a key challenge for developers and app store providers, particularly when the content available within an app varies over time and may not be reliably determinable (and therefore classifiable) at the point of submission to the app store. For example, user-generated and AI-generated content.

Read Ofcom’s report at: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/protecting-children/report-on-the-use-of-app-stores-by-children

As cited in the report, guidance on age rating of apps within the Apple App Store and Samsung Galaxy stores can be found at:

• https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/reference/app-information/age-ratings-values-and-definitions/

• https://seller.samsungapps.com/guidePopup.as?numcid=0202020000&localeLanguage=en