A group of civil society organizations and tech companies have banded together to call on UK politicians to rethink their age-verification plans. The entities, including Mozilla, Tor, and the Open Rights Group, have warned that the measures will force all users to prove their age and undermine the open internet.
The joint statement, led by the Open Rights Group, Mozilla, Tor, and other organizations such as ExpressVPN, IPVanish, Tuta, Proton, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, opposes the idea of putting online services behind age gates. They warn that it could affect social media, video games, VPNs, livestreams, feeds, and even static websites.
The open letter warns that now the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill has been passed, ministers are looking at which platforms and specific features should require age verification. The signatories say that this will result in all UK internet users having to verify their age, not just children, which will result in the creation of large databases full of sensitive ID data.
The creation of such databases is worrying to the signatories because recent serious breaches experienced by the UK government prove that user information would be at risk. Outside of hacking fears, the letter warns that the internet could turn into a patchwork of age-gated communities, instead of a globally accessible resource. It could also see the entrenchment of major app stores and big platforms due to compliance costs as small, volunteer-run services couldn’t afford to comply.
Instead of blanket bans, the signatories are urging the government to adopt “thoughtful” policy interventions that address the root causes of online harm such as the business models of large platforms built on extensive data collection, behavioral targeting, and engagement-maximizing design.
James Baker, Platform Power Programme Manager at Open Rights Group said:
“Over the last year, policies to prevent children from accessing pornography have been grown to the extent that we could need to provide ID in order to access social media, games and apps or use everyday features such as livestreams or feeds. The massive expansion of online ID systems put both children and adults’ sensitive data at risk.
“It also fails to address the structural problems that cause online harms, such as surveillance-driven advertising models and the dominance of a small number of Big Tech platforms. Expanding age verification will entrench the dominance of large tech companies, and harm small and volunteer-run services who may not be able to afford to comply.”
While the signatories’ concerns will likely be noted by politicians, it doesn’t seem likely that they will be taken onboard given the fact that these measures are supported across parties and the measures have been pushed quite far already; but, maybe MPs will surprise us and change their mind. Time will tell.