KUALA LUMPUR: A new regulatory sandbox approach and age verification method are in the works to protect underage Malaysians from harmful content on social medis, says Teo Nie Ching.
The Deputy Communications Minister said the regulatory sandbox will allow the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to collaborate with platform providers to test solutions to protect children online.
"This will include age verification mechanisms, entity validation, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for the detection of high-risk content, and enhancements to complaint-handling mechanisms to make them faster and more effective," she said during Minister Question Time in the Dewan Rakyat on Wednesday (Jan 28).
"The sandbox enables us to assess the feasibility of age verification while ensuring user account security, data protection, privacy, technological accuracy and alignment with Malaysia’s legal framework."
Teo added that once approved age verification mechanisms are in place together with the regulatory sandbox process, the onus to ensure that users aged 16 and below do not create social media accounts will be on social media platform providers.
Syerleena Abdul Rashid (PH-Bukit Bendera) had asked about the government’s plan to regulate the planned age verification process for social media platforms.
Teo said the ministry plans to test a new age verification system under the sandbox to ensure that under-16s will not be able to have social media accounts.
"The plan is to have users verify their identity either using their MyDigital ID, MyKad or even passport, which we will finalise later.
"However, the system will not collect any information on the user, (not even the) name... as we will not have access to that information.
"The system will focus solely on verifying age and nothing else," she added in reply to a supplementary question from Shaharizukirnain Abd Kadir (PN-Setiu) about cleaning up data on existing social media accounts once an age verification system is implemented.
