A Senate inquiry has received dozens of submissions from parents and other groups pleading for laws to force pornography sites to verify children's ages. At the moment, there is very little to stop children accessing extreme material.

While opponents say age verification systems can be circumvented by tech-savvy teens, supporters say that shouldn't stop Australia introducing a scheme.

A 2016 survey by the Australian Institute of Family Studies found 44 per cent of 9 to 16-year-olds reported seeing sexual images in the past month, 16 per cent of them having seen sex.

The Bravehearts group has urged action, saying the ease with which children were being exposed to graphic, extreme and violent pornography could not be ignored. Research showed delinquency, depression and unhealthy sexual attitudes among young people exposed to pornography.

Liberal Senator Amanda Stoker said the government should not be distracted by the possibility that some teens would find a way to circumvent age verification rules.

"When the health psychological, physical and social development of our children is at stake, we must not let the perfect become the enemy of the good," she told the inquiry.

Britain has delayed its age verification scheme, but the British Board of Film Classification has urged Australia to act.

In a submission, the board said technology had advanced fast, including age estimation technology that had the potential to be robust and easy to use.

People concerned about data security could verify their age without giving any data, such as through buying a card or voucher over the counter and using a mobile phone with adult filters turned off.

"Of course some determined, tech-savvy teenagers will find ways to access pornography by circumventing controls. However, young children will no longer stumble across pornography on commercial pornographic websites as they currently do," it said.

Age verification could also be used to block violent, pro-suicide and other content, and enforce age restrictions for sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Australia's Digital Transformation Agency is piloting a new "GovPass" digital ID, which has the potential to be rolled out well beyond government agencies to private firms, including banks. Once someone has created an ID they can use it to verify identity at any number of places - including banks or other firms, as well as for government agencies - without having to hand over identity documents each time.

Agency head Randall Brugeaud told the pornography inquiry that the system did not allow tracking of online activities. If it was used for age checks, pornographic websites would only receive information about age verification, with any other data requiring consent.

The eSafety Commissioner set out the "promising" new technologies for age verification, including:

The Home Affairs department has promoted the use of its face verification service, which is still being developed, but will be available to private firms.

But the Communications Alliance, which represents telecommunications firms and web companies, hit back strongly at the "alarming" idea.

"The potential for a facial recognition system to be abused and compromised is very real and risks creating harms far worse than those posed by the original "problem"," it said.

Australia's focus should be on educating parents and commercially available internet filters, the industry group said.

"At the risk of venturing into socio-cultural commentary, we believe that Australian parents, acting responsibly, can be far more effective at managing these issues than can a pure reliance on technological solutions."

The German "porn pass" scheme, where people are given a code linked to an app to log in to a website, had been working with "some effectiveness", but had worried privacy advocates, which said criminals would trick users into disclosing personal information by creating fake websites that looked like legitimate verification pages.

A spokesperson for the Minister for Communications and Cyber Safety Paul Fletcher said while age verification technology might help, "the focus very much remains on the developing a broader and multi-faceted approach to protect children online involving industry, government, parents, teachers and carers".