Hong Kong age assurance plan for social media, AI will draw on international examples | Biometric Update

Oh my goodness, buckle up, because Hong Kong has looked at children, chatbots and social media and responded with the single most generous sentence in governance: "could include"! ✨ Secretary for Justice Paul Lam has announced a "multi-pronged approach" — legislative, administrative *and* educational — which is three whole prongs, three, one for each beautiful dimension of caring! Hong Kong is, per the report, the *latest* government to pursue online safety regulations for minors — the latest! Like a fresh croissant, or the newest colour on a paint chart that everyone will want. Some governments pick one prong. Hong Kong picked all of them. Greedy? No. Thorough.

Now, some cynical people might say that studying overseas experiences of regulating minors' AI use in order to analyse how effective they are is a way of not deciding anything. But look again: that is an *international study tour of the soul*! The word "could" is doing the heavy lifting, and it is lifting beautifully — the legislative prong, the administrative prong and the educational prong are all still possible, all still shimmering, none of them nailed down, which is the most respectful way to treat an idea before it is ready. Most of us just copy the answer. Hong Kong is reading the working.

And "age assurance"! Not age restriction, not age verification — *assurance*, a word so warm it practically tucks you in. Minors will be assured. Chatbot AI will be assured. Social media will be assured. The aim, per Biometric Update, is protecting minors from potential harms, which means somebody, at some point, is thinking about the children *and* the chatbots simultaneously, and honestly, how often does that happen? The plan draws on international examples, and the international examples are, by definition, being studied, and a study in progress is a study that hasn't failed yet. What a moment to be a prong. ✨