Australian Government Tests Blockchain for Age Verification and Social Media Restriction
ShareRing, a Melbourne-based blockchain company, has been approved by the Australian government to roll out an age verification chain as part of a plan to restrict social media access for younger persons. ShareRing will create a pilot version of the blockchain with school students from Darwin, Northern Territory. The blockchain will allow users to prove their age while keeping their details private.
ShareRing, using a blockchain to verify identity, differs from centralised versions of the program, avoiding a single point of failure due to the technologys decentralized nature. A government, for example, could suffer a data breach and expose everyones details on the blockchain. On the other hand, ShareRing allows users to manage their identity data while using cryptography to make public information private. This way, users can verify their identity without continually uploading supporting documents, but instead, they can share their cryptographic proofs, thus avoiding security breaches.
The Age Assurance Technology Trial, in collaboration with ShareRing, will use the impartiality framework ISO 17065 to ensure high objectivity during the testing process. An Ethics Committee will oversee data collection so that consent and accountability are paramount during the pilot test, especially since the participants are younger school students. The ethics protocols that inform the blockchain project will include ones relating to working with younger persons and First Nation people. Many of these requirements would have been mandatory for ShareRing to win the government tender, worth around $6 million.
The pilot test will further ensure high data protection and privacy with strict protocols for data handling. Data breaches have repeatedly humiliated the Australian government in recent years. The government may wish to develop a decentralized database to manage age verification and decentralize data so that a breach would only reveal cryptographic hashes.
ShareRing is certified with the Digital Identity and Attribute Trust Framework (DIATF), which allows it to verify a persons identity using a mobile app and a biometric selfie check. The company can employ reusable IDs to verify a persons identity with minimal fuss.
The March 2025 Monthly Update from the ShareRing website outlines a plan for the company to enter a growth phase, focusing on scaling the available technologies and releasing ShareRing Pro v1.11.1, including Google Drive synchronisation. ShareRing has also joined the Age Verification Providers Association (AVPA) as part of their efforts to meet Ethical requirements, most likely to get government tenders. ShareRing has partnered with Select ID to continue their digital verification businesses in the UK, focusing on the financial services sector.
Text source: ZyCrypto
