Child safety and age assurance
Age assurance, grooming and enticement, and what actually protects kids on products adults use too.
Parents' top gaming concern is the rule they set least
Ofcom's Growing Up Gaming research: 55% of children who game online play with people they've never met offline at least sometimes, and strangers are parents' top concern, yet only 43% set rules about who their child plays with. Platforms should close that gap with defaults (contact limited to people a child knows, friction on adults reaching unknown children, one clear parental switch) and measure how often strangers reach kids.
Financial sextortion moves in hours, so start with what the teen sees
Financial sextortion can go from first contact to a payment demand inside a day, too fast for grooming detection built for weeks. Start with defaults that limit who can message a teen and notices about strangers, then a fast, shame-free response with an on-call emergency referral and a CyberTipline report.
Why early grooming detection matters
Tools that help platforms spot grooming early protect kids and the communities around them.
Grooming is a pattern, not a message
Responses build as signals stack on adult-to-minor contact, with thresholds tested on past cases, a queue worked by risk, privacy limits agreed up front, and four numbers that show it works.
Nudify apps: harm no single platform sees in full
The image is made on one service, the tool promoted on another and the harm lands on a third. That's why cross-platform signal sharing through Lantern matters.
Age assurance: what should each check unlock?
The method matters less than what each level of assurance lets a user do. Errors aren't equal, accounts change hands, and someone has to own the thresholds.
Games are where kids socialize now, and regulators know it
Grooming builds over weeks and usually moves off-platform. Protections that work act earlier and limit who can reach a child. Measure prevented contact, not just removals.
A banned account is not a closed case
Online enticement is a pattern of contact, not a file, and is now mandatory to report. The hard call is the account: ban visibly, or restrict quietly while the network is mapped.