It took Cruz Condren about a week to lose his Snapchat account, and a few seconds to get it back.
“It asked me to verify my age by a camera,” says the 14-year-old from the Gold Coast. “I just asked my mum to scan her face because she’s over 18. It just let me back on.”
Six months after Australia became the first country to ban under 16s from social media, Cruz’s workaround – performed with his mother’s blessing – is the kind of evidence now being weighed in London, Brussels and Ottawa as governments decide whether to copy Australia’s experiment or learn from its mistakes.
