This app recognizes your age – without any personal data

How old is a person really? This question is relevant for many companies – be it at airports or in social networks. British identity start-up Yoti solves the age detection problem without personal data. We tested the Yoti Age Scan.

Face recognition: high risk of misuse of sensitive data

In an increasingly digital world, it is important for companies to know their users. If you want to pick up your identity card at the registration office, you have to appear in person to confirm yourself and your age.

For social networks, for example, this process is very difficult. How is Instagram supposed to check millions of people every day and check if they really are already 13 years old?

And financial institutions – including, for example, digital banks or neo-brokers like Trade Republic – are also obliged to verify the age and identity of those interested when registering.

The problem with this is that identity cards and other passports for identification are highly sensitive. If this data is tapped during digital confirmation, the risk of identity theft is huge. Therefore, these processes harbor major data protection risks for companies.

Yoti: Age detection without ID and personal data

The British company Yoti has taken on exactly this problem. The company that 2014 by Robin Tombs in London was founded, has specialized in the development of people using artificial intelligence.

The special thing about it is: Yoti completely dispenses with personal data when verifying age. Users do not need a date of birth or an official document to have their age analyzed.

Instead, the app, which according to the company has been downloaded more than eleven million times, relies on neural networks in combination with artificial intelligence.

In concrete terms, this means that the technology behind Yoti has – put simply – learned from millions and millions of data what people of a certain age look like. In theory, one photo is sufficient to determine the age of a person.

Yoti Test: How well does the Age Scan really work?

But: do the promises of the British identity specialists also stand up to the practical test? The answer to that is yes and no. In our Yoti test, we basically had very positive experiences.

Of the AgeScan uses intelligent facial recognition to estimate a person’s age and perform verification. The information varies within a radius of three to four years.

This means: Yoti’s face recognition, which is free for users and does not store photos, specifies age ranges. Specifically, our test subjects were estimated to be between 29 and 33 years old, for example.

This is of course dangerous when it comes to a specific age. If there are restricted access for people under the age of 13, 16 or 18, it is essential to know the exact age in order to make a meaningful decision.

External changes confuse Yoti in the test

Likewise, it seems that in the training of artificial intelligence, some roles have been implemented subconsciously and unintentionally.

In our tests, for example, we found that the test subjects with glasses were always estimated to be one to two years older than the same test subjects without glasses. Of course, this raises legitimate questions about how well facial recognition actually works.

Accordingly, our conclusion about the Yoti Age Scan is mixed. The technology has always recognized the correct age range – in all tests. However, the results were relatively easy to manipulate.

How does Yoti make his money?

The interested user will ask this question sooner or later. The British identity and AI company has a clear answer to this.

The Yoti app will always be free for individuals. We make money by charging businesses to check the identity details of their customers.

Or to put it simply: Yoti does not make money from trading or providing personal user data to advertisers, but is paid for the services by the cooperation partners. In this way Yoti guarantees his independence.

Where is Yoti’s facial recognition used?

The success of young technology companies like Yoti literally stands and falls with the cooperation partners. And it is precisely at this point that the company management has successfully concluded important deals in recent years.

For example, the social network Instagram has been using Yoti technology since the summer of 2022 to verify the age of new users. The offshoot Virgin Games, which belongs to Sir Richard Branson’s empire, also uses artificial intelligence for online casinos.

The major airport London Heathrow, the authorities in Jersey and the British Post Office are also on Yoti’s list of customers. These names alone show that the technology developed apparently delivers more reliable results in everyday life than in the free online tests.

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