• Daily Telegraph, Wednesday, March 23, 2011 10:32 AM

Facebook admits that about 20,000 children are kicked off Facebook every day for lying about their age, The Daily Telegraph reports. "Despite efforts to enforce the strict 13 years or older age limit some children still slip through the checks," explains the Australian publisher. Facebook's chief privacy adviser Mozelle Thompson told Federal Parliament's cyber-safety committee: "There are people who lie. There are people who are under 13 [accessing Facebook] ... Facebook removes 20,000 people a day, people who are underage."

While the world's top social network has mechanisms to detect liars, Thompson admitted: "It's not perfect." Australia's Labor MP Graham Perrett reportedly suggested to Thompson that teenagers be forced to get parental permission before they joined Facebook. In response, Thompson said Facebook would soon hire an Australian, who would be based in Australia, to deal with "policy issues." Some 7 million Australians access Facebook every day, nine million access it each week and nearly 11 million visit the site each month, according to The Telegraph.

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