For age assurance sector facing quantum shift, privacy-by-design is key: Allen
For age assurance sector facing quantum shift, privacy-by-design is key: Allen
Publish Date: 2026-03-16 13:21:00
Source Domain: www.biometricupdate.com
The question of how to implement highly effective age assurance is complicated enough on its own, as current cultural and political discussions demonstrate. The world is currently adjusting its posture toward the internet, making the first major policy moves to ensure the worst material online is harder for kids to access. There are growing pains, as nations, platforms and providers wrestle with the right model.
But there’s another shift coming that could add another layer of complexity over top of it all. So says Tony Allen, organizer of the Global Age Assurance Standards Summit 2026, in a new essay that looks at “the potentially transformative rise of quantum computing.”
The question of what quantum capabilities will do to encryption has already become urgent in the biometrics and digital identity sector. But, Allen says, “quantum capability will inevitably intersect with digital trust systems across the internet including age assurance.”
But rather than presenting a threat, “the transition to a post-quantum world could reinforce and enhance many of the privacy-preserving principles that the age assurance sector is already embracing.” The question, then, is how to design online age assurance systems today that will be able to weather the turbulence.
Design now for post-quantum world
Currently, the post-quantum forecast calls for major disruption to classical public-key cryptography such as RSA or elliptic curve cryptography, which will be no match for the speed at which quantum computers can solve problems. There’s no certainty on when this event could happen, but general opinion in tech circles is that it is closer than previously believed.
The cryptography at risk is used in digital signatures, secure communication channels protecting verification data, cryptographic tokens enabling reusable age proofs and privacy-preserving proofs that confirm eligibility without revealing any identity data.
“For age assurance providers…
