GB-LONDON: Exclusion risks posed by age assurance technologies to children

Research services. DCMS wishes to understand the existing exclusion risks posed by age assurance solutions to children. DCMS believes that these exclusion risks may pose a greater risk to children who might be considered more vulnerable due to their circumstances and this work will look particularly at this. DCMS also wishes to understand how these risks can be reduced by age assurance solution providers, so that DCMS can support the development of more accessible solutions.

DCMS' longer term intention is to develop recommendations for age assurance providers to help them develop more inclusive age assurance solutions. This invitation to tender relates only to the first phase of work which will establish the evidence base for understanding exclusion risks in the context of vulnerable children and develop an initial set of recommendations.

The objectives of this first phase are to:

• to understand whether current age assurance solutions and the methods they use to determine the age of users risk excluding children;
• to understand how these exclusion risks affect different categories of children, e.g. children growing up in care, children outside of mainstream education, children with learning difficulties;
• offer insights into how these risks can be mitigated by age assurance providers; and
• develop some initial recommendations for age assurance providers to improve the inclusivity of their solutions.

In order to meet the objectives above, DCMS would like the successful tenderer to collect a mixture of qualitative and quantitative evidence on: the exclusion risks presented by different age assurance methods; how these exclusion risks impact on different categories of children and their parents and carers; how commonly these methods are used by current age assurance solutions; and the awareness age assurance providers have of these risks.

Additional information: The contracting authority considers that this contract may be suitable for economic operators that are small or medium enterprises (SMEs). However, any selection of tenderers will be based solely on the criteria set out for the procurement.

Tenders must be submitted via the Delta e-sourcing portal to be received no later than 12:00hrs (GMT), 14th December 2020 (the deadline for receipt of Tender Responses.

The estimated value of this project is in the range of £70,000 to £80,000. Please note that, whilst not the only criterion, pricing is a key element of our evaluation criteria. Prices must be inclusive of all fees, costs and expenses, and exclusive of VAT. The Department reserves the right to extend the contract for a further 4 weeks.