Gen Alpha is using makeup to pass age verification tech online. One mom caught her son using an eyebrow pencil

Back in the old days, you’d snag an older sibling’s expired license or put on some makeup and try your best to sneak into a bar or 18 and over venue. Well, it’s 2026 and kids are no different. They’re using someone else’s IDs and drawing on facial hair to get into the hottest venue in town: the internet.

A new report from Internet Matters revealed that a third of U.K. children have found ways to get past age verification systems designed to protect them online, with some resorting to creative workarounds including drawing facial hair on themselves to fool age-estimation technology.

The report, The Online Safety Act: Are Children Safer Online?, published by Britain’s leading not-for-profit for online child safety, examines the early impact of the U.K.’s Online Safety Act on families. While new safety measures are becoming more visible across children’s online spaces, the systems meant to enforce them are widely seen as weak and easy to circumvent. Nearly half of children report experiencing harm online, including exposure to violent and hateful content, despite the Act’s protections having come into force.

Earlier this week the U.K. government said it would impose some form of age or functionality restrictions on social media for under-16s, and pressure is mounting as other countries, including Australia, move to ban children from platforms outright.

Fake birthdays, borrowed logins and false moustaches

The research, which surveyed 1,270 U.K. children aged 9–16 and their parents, found that nearly a third (32%) of children admitted to bypassing age checks in just a two-month period. The most common method was simply entering a fake birthday (13%), followed by using someone else’s login (9%) or someone else’s device (8%). Others used a VPN or submitted photos and videos of other people, or even fictional characters, to trick facial age-estimation tools.

One of the more striking findings involved children physically altering their appearance to deceive the........

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