Underage gig workers keep outsmarting facial recognition

Eduardo Montanari, who manages delivery logistics at a burger shop north of São Paulo, has noticed a pattern: Every time an order pickup is assigned to a female driver, there’s a good chance the worker is a minor. “Often these minors use [delivery] apps with an account in their mother or older sister’s name,” he told Rest of World.

Delivery work in Brazil is only legal for people above the age of 18 years. Apps like iFood and Rappi — the two biggest delivery platforms in Brazil — have attempted to combat child labor with the introduction of technological safeguards, particularly facial recognition. But the problem has persisted as workers find ways to circumvent the rules.

Facing pressure from authorities to eradicate child labor, and lacking a fully dependable tech solution, iFood and Rappi now also rely on facial recognition of a different sort: They ask customers and restaurants to report underage delivery workers.

But none of the customers and restaurant employees who spoke to Rest of World said they’d ever reported the workers to the apps or to authorities, even if they believed they were minors. Reasons for not reporting included uncertainty about whether the person was actually underaged, not having the time, or not wanting to potentially cause harm by having the accounts associated with the minors canceled. Both Rappi and iFood declined to answer Rest of World’s questions on the number of reports made by customers or businesses.

Junior, who asked to be identified only by his first name for fear of repercussions at work, oversees deliveries at a health-food restaurant. In the past year, he told Rest of World, around 18 to 20 underage boys have shown up to collect deliveries for iFood — the app his restaurant exclusively works with. When asked if he had reported any of them to iFood, Junior said no. “Nowadays, it’s very hard to tell; 16-year-olds already have beards, tattoos,” he said, adding that he has noticed a pattern: Minors often tend to come on weekends — when it’s busiest — and on bicycles.

According to official government data, there were approximately 1.8 million children and adolescents working across Brazil as of 2019. The International Labour Organization considers any work that involves being on the street — like delivery work — to be one of “the worst forms of labor” as it is not considered appropriately educational, said Tânia Dornellas, political scientist and advocacy officer at Brazilian Campaign for the Right to Education. Around 700,000 children fall in this category in Brazil, according to the latest data.