Skip to main content

Age Checks at BLK

Safety is always top of mind at BLK. In some countries, additional safeguards apply to services in order to protect minors from accessing them. For example, the EU Digital Services Act, the UK’s Online Safety Act, Australia’s Social Media Minimum Age Act and Brazil’s Digital ECA require that online platforms use age assurance methods to protect young people online. Our automated Age Check processes help prevent people under 18 from accessing BLK, as required by law and our Terms of Use.

BLK applies multiple layers of protection to help keep the platform safe. Please read this article for details about the additional age assurance methods employed by BLK in certain regions, on top of our standard account safeguards, and how your data is used and stored for age assurance. 

Age Check: How BLK estimates your age

BLK uses a variety of age assurance methods (“Age Checks”) to help us ensure that you’re at least 18 years old. Depending on your region, you may be asked to upload at least one photo including your face to estimate your age with automated technology. The Age Check process presented to you may vary depending on applicable legal requirements and guidance in your region. 

We currently use the following additional mandatory age checks on your region:

  • Face Photo Upload (Australia, Brazil, EEA)
  • Face Check™ Scan (UK)

Learn more about how these age checks work and how your age estimate is reviewed in the relevant sections below. If you are presented with an age check, you must complete it to fully access BLK. You won’t be able to send likes or messages, and your profile won’t be visible to others, until you successfully complete the age check.

Additionally, in some regions, we may receive age information provided by the Apple App Store or Google Play Store to help prevent anyone under 18 from accessing our service. Learn more below. 

Age Check: Face Photo Upload 

Applicable Region(s): Australia, Brazil, EEA

If you’re located in these regions, you'll need to upload at least 1 clear photo of your face to your profile so that we can complete the age check process. This helps us assess whether you are likely to  meet the minimum age requirement to use BLK, as required by law and our Terms of Use. We’ll use automated technology to confirm that at least one of your profile photos is a solo photo of you and to detect your face. If we do not detect a solo face photo, you’ll be prompted to upload one.

Our automated technology analyzes your uploaded face photo(s) to estimate whether or not you’re 18 or over. See below for more detail.

Age Check: Face Check™ Scan

Applicable Regions: UK

We’re rolling out a requirement that new users complete a biometric Face Check scan with a video selfie in order to help make BLK a more authentic place. When you take a video selfie, we use facial scanning technology to check that the video was taken of a real, live person, and that it was not digitally altered or manipulated. Your facial geometry, which may be considered “biometric information” in some places, will be used and stored to check your profile photos, reduce fraud, and help ensure that no other profile is using your likeness. 

Face Check also helps us estimate your age. We capture and store two audit images - screenshots - from your video selfie, which are analyzed with automated technology to estimate whether or not you’re 18 or over. See below for more detail.

After successfully completing your video selfie and uploading a clear solo face photo that matches the face in your video selfie, you’ll automatically get a Photo Verified badge. Learn more about how Face Check processes your data here. 

Age Check Review: What BLK does with your age estimate

Your face photo(s) or audit images are analyzed by automated technology to assess the likelihood that you’re at least 18 years old. 

  • If we determine you’re likely over 18 and no further review is required, you can continue using BLK as usual.
  • If the manual review determines that you’re likely under 18, your account will be banned. To use BLK, you’ll need to submit an appeal, as described below.
  • If your account is under review, your profile won’t be visible to other users and your functionality will be limited until the review is complete.

The results of your age check may be used to help train certain machine learning models that support our trust and safety tools, as well as to test and audit those models and tools.

Age Checks based on App Store profile

Where applicable, we use age information provided by the Apple App Store or Google Play Store to prevent anyone under 18 from accessing our service.

For New Users: After sharing your location during onboarding, you will be asked to share your Age Range, as determined by your Apple or Google Play Store account, to confirm you are over the age of 18. Your specific age and birthday will not be shared with BLK. If you decline to share your age range information with BLK, you will not be able to create a BLK account.

Where the App Store Checks are applicable, and you are over 18 but unable to create an account, please check your app store settings to ensure:

  • Your date of birth is correct
  • Your account is not under parental supervision, and
  • Age information sharing is enabled.

Once your settings are updated, return to BLK and try again.

Note: After confirming your age range using your App Store information, you may be required to complete one of the age checks outlined above in accordance with applicable law. 

Age assurance appeals

If your account is banned for being underage and you believe this was a mistake, you can appeal the decision through our Appeals Form.

You’ll need to upload your redacted valid government-issued ID document, showing only your name, photo, and date of birth, which is then sent to a trained human agent for review. The agent will manually check whether:

  • Your ID photo appears to match your profile photo(s) and audit image(s); and
  • The date of birth on the ID matches your BLK profile info and indicates you are at least 18 years old. Your date of birth and age on BLK will be updated if there’s a mismatch. 

Please note that the manual review process may take up to 24 hours. Once reviewed, your ID is promptly deleted.

If you're a resident of Australia and would like an alternative to submitting a government-issued ID when appealing an age-related ban, please contact us to request an additional review of your account by a moderator in lieu of providing your ID.

How your data is stored

The results from your Age Check will be stored in a secure format for 1 year. Your audit images, photo(s) and moderation records are processed in accordance with BLK’s Privacy Policy. This means that BLK will keep your audit images and photos for the life of the account (plus the applicable retention period following account closure or ban), the photos will continue to be visible on your profile until you replace them, and moderation records are retained for the life of the account (plus the applicable retention period following account closure or ban). Audit images are not added to your profile. 

Your data is stored using technical and organizational safeguards designed to protect the data on Amazon Web Services (AWS). The technology used to estimate age is proprietary to Match Group. If you'd like to learn more about how AWS handles data, you can click here.

BLK’s data practices 

Visit our Privacy Policy to learn more about our privacy practices, including the Your Rights section. For more information about automated decision-making at BLK, check out this FAQ.

Still have questions?

Contact us anytime.