\n<\/p>\n
Technologists and policymakers are reckoning with a generation-defining problem on the internet: while it can be a revolutionary force for unprecedented education and connection across the globe, it can also pose dangers to children when they have completely unfettered access.<\/p>\n
There is no simple way, however, to monitor children\u2019s internet access without surveilling adults, paving the way for disastrous online privacy violations.<\/p>\n
While some advocates praise these laws as victories for children\u2019s safety, many security experts warn that these laws are being proposed and passed with flawed implementation plans, which pose dangerous security risks for adult users as well. In the United States alone, 23 states have enacted age verification laws as of last month, with two more states following suit in September. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom\u2019s Online Safety Act, which took effect in July, requires many online platforms to verify users\u2019 identities before granting access.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a primer on where the debate over age and identity verification stands.<\/p>\n
When we talk about age verification laws, we aren\u2019t talking about when you made a Neopets account as a kid and checked a box to affirm that you were at least 13 years old. In the United States, those types of age checks are a result of the Children\u2019s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), an internet safety law passed in 1998. But, as you already know, if you had a Neopets account when you were 10, COPPA-era age checks are very easy to navigate around. You simply click a box that says you\u2019re 13.<\/p>\n
In the context of the laws that have cropped up during the 2020s, age verification usually refers to a user uploading an official ID to a third-party verification system to prove who they are. Users might also upload biometric facial scans, like the ones that power Face ID on iPhones.<\/p>\n
Of course, internet safety is not really about preventing children from playing games like Neopets. Parents and lawmakers are concerned about children accessing content that\u2019s potentially dangerous for minors, like online pornography, information about illicit drug use, and social media sites where they may encounter strangers with bad intentions.<\/p>\n
Techcrunch event<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco<\/span> These concerns are not unfounded. Parents have turned to lawmakers to share horrific stories of how their children died after purchasing fentanyl-laced drugs on Facebook, or how they took their own lives after facing incessant bullying on Snapchat.<\/p>\n As technology becomes more sophisticated, the problem is getting worse: Meta\u2019s AI chatbots have reportedly flirted with children, while Character.AI and OpenAI are facing lawsuits over the suicides of children that were allegedly encouraged by the companies\u2019 chatbots.<\/p>\n We know the internet isn\u2019t all bad, though. Without leaving your home or spending any money, you can learn to play guitar or write code. You can forge meaningful friendships with people from the other side of the world. You can access specialized telehealth care, even if you live somewhere where no doctor is trained in your diagnosis. You can find the answer to just about any question you want at any given moment (the capital of Madagascar is Antananarivo, by the way).<\/p>\n This is how global lawmakers have arrived at what they believe to be a sound compromise: they won\u2019t nuke the whole internet, but they\u2019ll just put certain content behind a gate that you can only unlock if you can prove you\u2019re an adult. But in this case, you\u2019re not just clicking a box to confirm your age \u2013 you\u2019re uploading your government ID or scanning your biometric data to prove you can access certain content.<\/p>\n The safety of any digital security measure depends on its implementation.<\/p>\n Apple builds out products like Face ID so that these biometric scans of your face never leave your iPhone \u2013 they\u2019re never shared over the cloud, which massively limits the potential for hackers to gain access.<\/p>\n But when any sort of connection to another network gets involved, that\u2019s when identity verification can get fishy. We\u2019ve already watched how these measures can play out poorly when the technology is anything but rock-solid.<\/p>\n \u201cNo method of age verification is both privacy-protective and entirely accurate,\u201d the Electronic Frontier Foundation writes. \u201cThese methods don\u2019t each fit somewhere on a spectrum of \u2018more safe\u2019 and \u2018less safe,\u2019 or \u2018more accurate\u2019 and \u2018less accurate.\u2019 Rather, they each fall on a spectrum of \u2018dangerous in one way\u2019 to \u2018dangerous in a different way.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n In recent memory, we have some strong examples of how badly things can go when a company slips up on its security.<\/p>\n On Tea, an app that women use to share information about men they meet on dating apps, users have to upload selfies and photos of their IDs to prove that they are who they say they are. But users on 4chan, a misogynistic web forum, found that Tea left users\u2019 data exposed, meaning that bad actors could access tens of thousands of users\u2019 government IDs, selfies, and even direct messages on the platform, where women shared sensitive information about their dating experiences. What was once purported to be an app for women\u2019s safety ended up exposing its users to vicious harassment, giving bad actors access to personal information like their home addresses.<\/p>\n These hacks were possible despite Tea\u2019s promise that these images were not stored anywhere and were deleted immediately (evidently, those claims were false).<\/p>\n This kind of thing happens all the time \u2013 just look at TechCrunch\u2019s security coverage. But it\u2019s not just happening to new apps like Tea. World governments and trillion-dollar tech giants are certainly not exempt from data breaches.<\/p>\n These laws have inspired much backlash, but it\u2019s not just because people are shy about linking their porn viewership to their government IDs.<\/p>\n In places where people can be prosecuted for political speech, anonymity is vital to allow people to meaningfully discuss current events and critique those in power without fear of retribution. Corporate whistleblowers could be unable to report a company\u2019s wrongdoing if all of their online activity is linked to their identity, and victims of domestic abuse will find it even more difficult to flee dangerous situations.<\/p>\n In the U.S., the idea of being prosecuted for one\u2019s political beliefs is becoming less theoretical. President Trump has threatened to send his political opponents to prison, and the government has revoked visas from international students who have criticized the Israeli government or participated in protests against the country\u2019s military actions.<\/p>\n In the United States, twenty-three states have enacted age verification laws as of August 2025, while two more states have laws slated to take effect in late September 2025.<\/p>\n These laws mostly impact websites that host certain percentages of \u201csexual material harmful to minors,\u201d which varies from state to state.<\/p>\n In practice, this means that pornographic websites must verify a user\u2019s identity before they can access the website. But some sites, like Pornhub, have opted to simply block traffic from certain states.<\/p>\n \u201cSince age verification software requires users to hand over extremely sensitive information, it opens the door to the risk of data breaches,\u201d Pornhub wrote on its blog. \u201cWhether or not your intentions are good, governments have historically struggled to secure this data.\u201d<\/p>\n The definition of this term varies depending on who is enforcing the law.<\/p>\n At a time when LGBTQ rights are under attack in the U.S., activists have warned that laws like this could be used to classify non-pornographic information about the LGBTQ community, as well as basic sex education, as \u201csexual material harmful to minors.\u201d These concerns appear well-founded, given that President Trump\u2019s administration has removed references to civil rights movements and LGBTQ history from some government websites.<\/p>\n Texas\u2019s age verification law \u2013 which was upheld in a Supreme Court ruling in June \u2013 was passed around the same time the state imposed other legal restrictions on the LGBTQ community, including limits on public drag shows and bans on gender-affirming care for minors. The drag show law was later deemed unconstitutional for violating the First Amendment.<\/p>\n The United Kingdom enacted the Online Safety Act in July 2025, requiring many online platforms to verify a user\u2019s identity before allowing them access. If a user is identified as a minor, they won\u2019t be allowed on certain websites. The Act applies to search engines, social media platforms, video-sharing platforms, instant messaging services, cloud storage sites \u2013 pretty much anywhere that you may encounter media or talk to someone.<\/p>\n In practice, this means that websites like YouTube, Spotify, Google, X, and Reddit are requiring UK users to verify their identity before accessing certain content. These requirements don\u2019t just apply to pornographic or violent content \u2013 people in the UK have been barred from viewing vital education and news sources, making it difficult to access information without exposing themselves to potential privacy concerns.<\/p>\n The UK does not use one specific way of verifying one\u2019s identity \u2013 individual websites can decide what mechanism to use, and Ofcom, the UK\u2019s communications regulator, is supposed to oversee this implementation. But as we explained with the Tea example, we can\u2019t trust that any given authentication tool will be safe.<\/p>\n Now, users who are subject to identity verification must decide if they want to freely access information or if they want to expose themselves to privacy risks.<\/p>\n Even if you don\u2019t live in the U.K., you may be impacted by tech platforms that are pre-complying with these regulations.<\/p>\n In the U.S., YouTube has already begun to roll out technology that is supposed to estimate users\u2019 ages based on their activity, regardless of what age they listed when registering their account.<\/p>\n Yes, and the App Store charts in the U.K. prove it \u2013 after the Online Safety Act took effect, half of the top ten free apps on iOS were VPNs (Virtual Private Networks). We also saw VPN downloads spike after Pornhub access was blocked in many U.S. states.<\/p>\n When Pornhub was suspended in France, ProtonVPN said that registrations had spiked by 1000% within half an hour \u2013 the company said this was a bigger spike than when TikTok temporarily blocked American users.<\/p>\n You may have used a VPN before if you logged into your office desktop computer remotely, or if you spoofed your location so that you could watch British sitcoms for free from the U.S.<\/p>\n This introduces another issue: free VPNs don\u2019t always have great privacy practices, even if they are advertised as such.<\/p>\n If you want to learn more about VPNs, TechCrunch has guides on what you need to know about VPNs and how you can decide if you need to use one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Technologists and policymakers are reckoning with a generation-defining problem on the internet: while it can be a revolutionary force for unprecedented education and connection across the globe, it can also pose dangers to children when they have completely unfettered access. There is no simple way, however, to monitor children\u2019s internet access without surveilling adults, paving<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[2822,638,2165,2266,4098,10417],"class_list":{"0":"post-19616","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-age","9":"tag-debate","10":"tag-expanding","11":"tag-growing","12":"tag-laws","13":"tag-verification"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t|<\/span>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 27-29, 2025<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\nIs it safe to verify your identity by uploading a government ID or a biometric scan?<\/h2>\n
Does it really matter if I lose my anonymity on the internet? I\u2019m not doing anything shady.<\/h2>\n
What age verification laws have gone into effect in the U.S.?<\/h2>\n
What counts as \u201csexual material harmful to minors\u201d?<\/h2>\n
What\u2019s going on with age verification in the U.K.?<\/h2>\n
Does the U.K. age verification law affect me if I live elsewhere?<\/h2>\n
Can\u2019t you just use a VPN to get around these barriers?<\/h2>\n