Meta to study PH national ID integration with its platforms

MANILA, Philippines — Meta will send a team to the Philippines to study the integration of the country’s national ID system into its platforms, Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Secretary Henry Aguda said on Monday.

During the House committee on appropriations’ briefing on the DICT’s proposed 2027 budget, Aguda told lawmakers about their recent meeting with Meta in Singapore, where they discussed identity verification concerns in the gaming application Roblox, among other issues.

READ: House panel OKs total social media ban for children below 13

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Aguda then cited the national ID’s e-verify solution to make age verification more accurate, allowing Roblox to verify a player’s age using the national ID without transferring personal information to the gaming platform.

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“If it works on Roblox, that’s what Meta is saying that it can be used as another tool to verify the age of the minor or other information that can be gathered. This is focused on making sure that whoever the user is, the content will be age-appropriate,” Aguda said.

Kabataan party-list Rep. Renee Co then raised Meta’s concern about the technical complexity of integrating the national ID for verification. Aguda said the agency understands Meta’s concern, as this has not been done anywhere in the world.

READ: Roblox agrees on child-safety measures with PH gov’t

“What Meta is concerned about is if it is done in one country, it must also be done in 170 or so countries. We understand the complexity. Meta said that it will bring a technical working team here to study,” Aguda said.

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The secretary also noted that Roblox was the one who suggested using the national ID for verification of application users. He added that they are hopeful that once the gaming application successfully uses the ID system for verification, it can serve as a model for technical and policy templates for other social media platforms.

Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla earlier said that the perpetrator behind the fatal shooting incident at Ateneo de Zamboanga University may have been influenced by Roblox.

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While Remulla said that “Roblox in itself is not a dangerous game,” he pointed out that the chat group in the game is where the “radicalization comes in.”

Despite calls to ban the game, the Filipino Roblox Developers Association has opposed a total ban on the game, calling for a “more targeted response” instead.

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The group said that before banning the platform, “we believe the public deserves to see the evidence supporting it and understand exactly where the safety failure occurred.” /mcm