The Digital Governance Standards Institute (DGSI) has announced the publication of a first-of-its-kind national standard in Canada, which provides implementation guidance and minimum requirements for responsibly designing, implementing, and using technologies that estimate or verify a person’s age.
In its media release, DGSI said the new standard aims to:
- Offer a structured approach and clarity for organizations developing and deploying age assurance solutions in Canada and beyond
- Promote digital environments that preserve privacy, respect rights, minimize risk, ensure proportionality, and keep children, youth, and other users safe
- Complement the country’s online safety and digital identity policy efforts
DGSI noted that the standard – titled “CAN/DGSI 127:2025, Age Assurance Technologies” – applies to public companies and private sector organizations alike.
DGSI said the new standard covers the following components:
- privacy and risk management
- method selection and proportionality
- privacy-centred design
- data protection and governance
- user rights and redress
DGSI specified that the standard seeks to:
- Make organizations conduct privacy impact assessments and child rights impact assessments to align their age assurance practices with Canadian law and international human rights obligations
- Help organizations select the most appropriate age assurance method – including biometrics, document verification, or capacity testing – based on the risk level, accuracy required, and user context
- Require age assurance systems to support transparency, accessibility, and interoperability across jurisdictions, and require the development of these systems to consider privacy by design, security by design, and data minimization principles
- Strictly limit the collection, use, and retention of personal data, with information utilized exclusively for age assurance, protected against misuse, and securely deleted once no longer necessary
- Ensure that users know about AI use and can access clear and accessible processes to challenge incorrect age determinations
More on age assurance
In its media release, DGSI said age assurance – an umbrella term for age verification and estimation – has become a key part of digital safety practices.
DGSI noted that organizations are increasingly adopting technological solutions – such as biometric checks, document-based checks, behavioural profiling, and cross-platform authentication – to comply with their shifting legal, ethical, and security obligations.
“As digital services become more embedded in everyday life, age-gating has emerged as a weak link in protecting young users,” DGSI said in its media release. “Traditional methods, like self-declared birthdates, are easy to bypass.”
DGSI stressed that inconsistently utilizing verification tools can lead to privacy and effectiveness issues.