Age verification systems require the collection of sensitive data to support biometric information. Soon, the internet will transform into a fully-surveilled digital panopticon.

By: Taylor Lorenz, technology journalist, author of the newsletter “User Mag” and the bestselling book Living Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet [Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet] / The Guardian
Translation: Telegrafi.com

Over the past year, more than two dozen countries around the world have proposed bans on social media for large segments of their populations. These laws, often proposed under the guise of “child safety,” are ushering in an era of mass surveillance and widespread censorship, contributing to what scholars have called a “global recession of free speech.”

Last year, Australia became the first country to ban anyone under the age of 16 from accessing social media. The move quickly encouraged other countries around the world to follow suit. Germany’s ruling party announced it was backing a ban on social media. French President Emmanuel Macron called for a ban on social media for under-15s. In the United Kingdom, Keir Starmer has called for broad bans on social media. Greece, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Japan have also pursued similar laws to verify online identities.

In the US, online age verification laws have been passed or are under consideration in more than half of the country’s states. In the coming weeks, a package of 19 “child safety” bills, some of which would require identity verification for social media, is expected to move forward in the House of Representatives. Big tech platforms, such as Meta, Google and Discord, have begun to adapt in advance to these laws to precede regulation.

While social media bans may seem like a reasonable measure to protect children, they are not only ineffective, but they endanger both children and adults. There is little evidence that social media is fueling any kind of widespread mental health crisis in children. Studies have consistently shown otherwise. The removal of anonymity from the internet, which will inevitably happen when tech companies are forced to identify and ban children, allows for easier government surveillance and censorship of journalists, activists, and whistleblowers who rely on online anonymity.

And while some claim that these laws would limit the power of big tech, only the largest tech companies have the resources to afford the enormous costs of age verification systems. Nonprofit and independent platforms could be forced to shut down, further consolidating the power of the tech giants. Mass surveillance systems, once built, can be easily exploited by governments and malicious actors.

If we want to solve the problems with social media, the starting point is comprehensive data privacy reform and consumer protection. Governments can also take steps to break up big tech companies and prosecute them for anti-competitive behavior. Lawmakers, who claim to care about children, can enact broader social and economic policies that we know would actually improve children’s lives. Social media is a lifeline, especially for marginalized youth, like LGBTQ+ teens. Any policies that restrict access to the internet should focus on the most vulnerable children and adults.

To enforce the social media bans being proposed around the world, some kind of age-verification system is required, which essentially means expanding surveillance technology. Since algorithmic systems cannot accurately estimate age, verifying a user’s age also requires the collection of highly sensitive data or government documents to back up the biometric data collected. The laws under consideration do not all specify which system would be used, but they all have significant privacy and security concerns.

The fundamental issue with “age verification” through technology is that it doesn’t exist. Human beings don’t age linearly. There is no physiological transformation that occurs on the night of your 16th or 18th birthday that would allow an artificial intelligence to accurately determine your age, especially during puberty. As a result, age verification systems that rely on biometric data collection must also require government-issued identification documents or other highly sensitive personal information to link users’ profiles to their offline identities and confirm their age.

This system not only allows big tech companies to collect even more deeply personal data about children, but it also creates major cybersecurity risks. The data collected by identity verification systems does not remain private. In October of last year, Discord-i suffered a major breach of identity data collected by a contractor for age verification purposes. This week, researchers discovered that its age verification software has links to investors linked to US government surveillance efforts.

Another insidious problem with these laws is the reactionary political movement behind them. In the US, groups that have played a key role in lobbying for age verification include the Heritage Foundation [Heritage Foundation], the right-wing think tank that organized Project 2025 [Project 2025], and the National Center for Sexual Exploitation [National Center on Sexual Exploitation - NCOSE], formerly known as Morality in the Media [Morality in Media], a far-right activist organization with ties to religious fundamentalism that has fought for decades to restrict “indecent” content on the internet.

Nor can the timing of the passage of these laws be separated from the broader crackdown on freedom of expression and protest under the Trump administration in the US. The ban on TikTokwas passed in the wake of student protests against atrocities committed in Gaza. Student activists have played a crucial role in grassroots efforts to protect immigrants from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents seeking to take them to detention centers. Amidst all this, the U.S. government has escalated its attacks on anonymous online speech, flooding technology companies with subpoenas for information on hundreds of anonymous social media accounts against ICE. While the situation is less dire in the United Kingdom, successive governments have tended to crack down on protests, often involving young people, over the climate crisis and Gaza.

Ari Cohn, senior advisor for technology policy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression [Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression - Fire], noted that the decision of Germany's ruling party, the Christian Democratic Union, to ask the federal government to impose age restrictions on social media comes immediately after German police launched investigations into individuals who had insulted Germany's Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, in Facebook.

“All the lawmakers will claim they are doing this [age verification] to protect young people from harm, but they are not mentioning the appropriate power this gives the government to control and curb speech they oppose, and even to punish their critics,” Cohn told me.

Instead of addressing the known causes of youth distress, politicians around the world seem determined to exploit their suffering to push through laws that will strip both young and old of our rights. Protecting children from online harm is a noble goal, but the solution is not bans based on age-verification laws.

This could transform the internet from a space of free expression into a fully-surveilled digital panopticon, where every action you take is linked to your official identity document. Once built, this surveillance infrastructure will be abused, just as every previous expansion of government power for surveillance and censorship has been abused. We must do everything in our power to stop these laws where we can and to preserve a free and open internet. /Telegraph/

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