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Summarised by Centrist
Governments around the world are pushing age-verification rules for social media and online content, arguing that the measures are needed to protect children.
But so-called age verification often means identity verification, requiring users to prove who they are before accessing websites, apps or platforms.
Social media companies likely have a substantial ability to estimate users’ ages through account information, behavioural patterns, social networks, device data and advertising profiles. If governments wanted to protect children, they could require platforms to block underage users or restrict harmful design features.
Instead, the new rules risk building systems that make anonymous browsing and anonymous posting much harder. As the Mullvad VPN writes, “The correct term for age verification as it is implemented today is therefore identity verification.”
Age checks could expand to VPNs, app stores, operating systems and browsers, making it harder for people to avoid national internet restrictions. Politicians in several countries have already discussed VPN restrictions as a way to stop users from bypassing age checks.
Even the EU’s privacy-focused age verification app may not be fully anonymous. While it is presented as privacy-friendly, the issuer of age credentials may still be able to link those credentials back to users unless stronger Zero-Knowledge Proof technology is used.
Child safety may become the public justification for a much broader digital control system.
According to Mullvad VPN, “By that point, an infrastructure will already have been rolled out; people will have gotten used to it, and it will be harder to roll it back”.
