The Australian government has given the green light to ShareRing, a blockchain firm based in Melbourne, to develop an age verification chain. This initiative is part of an overarching strategy to regulate the use of social media among minors. The pilot version of the blockchain, designed for use by students from Darwin, Northern Territory, will enable users to confirm their age while maintaining the confidentiality of their personal information.
ShareRing’s approach, which leverages blockchain to authenticate identities, offers an innovative alternative to centralized versions of the program. Its decentralized model eliminates the risk of a single point of failure, thus providing robust data protection. For instance, even if a government-run database experiences a breach, only cryptographic hashes would be exposed, not the actual details stored on the blockchain. ShareRing empowers users to manage their own identity data, using cryptographic methods to keep public data private. This negates the need for users to repeatedly upload supporting documents, instead, they can simply share their cryptographic proofs.
The Age Assurance Technology Trial, in partnership with ShareRing, will adhere to the impartiality standards of ISO 17065 to maintain high objectivity during testing. With the participants being younger students, an Ethics Committee will supervise data collection to ensure consent and accountability. The ethical guidelines for the project will consider the needs of younger individuals and First Nation people.
As part of the government tender, which was valued at approximately $6 million, ShareRing had to meet stringent standards. Among these included protocols for data handling that promise enhanced data protection and privacy. The Australian government has suffered numerous data breaches in recent years and is keen to explore decentralized solutions for age verification and data management.
ShareRing is accredited with the Digital Identity and Attribute Trust Framework (DIATF), enabling it to verify identities via a mobile application and a biometric selfie check. The company can use reusable IDs for fuss-free identity verification. ShareRing’s strategic plan, as outlined in its March 2025 Monthly Update, includes scaling its available technologies and introducing ShareRing Pro v1.11.1, which features Google Drive synchronization. It has also joined the Age Verification Providers Association (AVPA) and partnered with Select ID to expand its digital verification services into the UK’s financial services sector.
