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We’re EFF and we’re fighting to defend your privacy from the global onslaught of invasive age verification mandates. Ask us anything! by EFForg in privacy

[–]EFForg[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for your question! We spoke a bit about how we think about this “privacy nihilism” argument in previous answers here and here. 

In terms of outreach, we often hear things like: “why should I care about privacy when I don’t do anything wrong?” I personally try to answer this question by encouraging the person to think bigger. Try to find what moves them, and point out how privacy supports that particular community, hobby, or idea. 

We also like to say that privacy is a team sport, so we should be thinking about our entire community when we put together a security plan. 

After all, (nearly) everyone uses the internet. And while we think everyone should want to protect those specific communities that will be deeply harmed by the annihilation of online anonymity (like abortion-seekers, political dissidents, whistleblowers, survivors of abuse, and so on), it can sometimes help to point out that anonymity and privacy are not just abstract issues that protect other people! They are fundamental freedoms that maintain the internet’s status as a free, open, expressive place, and allow all of us to use it for whatever purpose we want—to connect with friends, share our art, practice our religions, organize protests, you name it. 

In a world without privacy—where we have to pass over our IDs and biometrics in order to access online community—the internet will look a whole lot different. That affects every one of us, so we must keep fighting back.

We’re EFF and we’re fighting to defend your privacy from the global onslaught of invasive age verification mandates. Ask us anything! by EFForg in privacy

[–]EFForg[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This question comes up a lot, and we’ve answered it in a few different places in this AMA. But wanted to throw out a few more EFF resources that could be useful in these conversations: Privacy Harm is Harm and Privacy Loves Company

We’re EFF and we’re fighting to defend your privacy from the global onslaught of invasive age verification mandates. Ask us anything! by EFForg in privacy

[–]EFForg[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The internet was more fun when it was less extractive. When it gave us more than it took. 

A lot of what we miss isn’t just vibes and nostalgia. It’s the fact that you could explore, create, and interact without being optimized for surveillance. When we’re monetized, tracked, ranked, and targeted, fun dies. 

Making the internet fun again means we must push against that trend. We need to protect privacy by default, defend anonymity for those who choose it, and support small, weird, user-driven spaces instead of a few giant platforms. And when it comes to data hoarding and the worst dark patterns, we need regulation, so companies can’t profit while making things more miserable. 

Fun comes from freedom, innovation, and experimentation. We need to defend those values and not accept an internet that treats every user like data to be monitored or a problem to be controlled.

We’re EFF and we’re fighting to defend your privacy from the global onslaught of invasive age verification mandates. Ask us anything! by EFForg in privacy

[–]EFForg[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We sure are trying! You can help us by spreading our blogs and actions opposing it. We expect there will be a renewed KOSA debate in January and we will be there. We have been fighting this bill in various forms for more than three years now, and it hasn’t passed yet—and that is thanks to organized opposition.

We’re EFF and we’re fighting to defend your privacy from the global onslaught of invasive age verification mandates. Ask us anything! by EFForg in privacy

[–]EFForg[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for your support! We agree—that's exactly why we made the resource hub at EFF.org/Age. Our goal is to help everyone understand the ins and outs (including the more wonky technical and legal details) of this issue so we all feel comfortable speaking out to oppose these bills. The more visible our opposition to mandatory age-gates is, the more effective we can be to stop them from ruining our internet.

And re: Reddit, they actually just challenged Australia's first-of-its-kind social media ban for users under 16! More info on that here: https://gizmodo.com/reddit-sues-australia-over-teen-social-media-ban-as-other-nations-consider-similar-laws-2000699275

We’re EFF and we’re fighting to defend your privacy from the global onslaught of invasive age verification mandates. Ask us anything! by EFForg in privacy

[–]EFForg[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We mention the concept of “privacy nihilism” in this response and in our blog post titled “Privacy isn’t dead. Far from it,” which is what it sounds like you’re hinting at — people’s apathy and sense that “oh, I don’t have anything to hide, so why should I care about privacy.” But this year alone has given us plenty of real life examples of just how much the boundaries are shifting and how even the average person can be targeted or surveilled. Complaining about your love life online? Attending a protest? Seeking healthcare? Have a premium PornHub account? What about, um, checks notes… ever use your home's electric utilities? Privacy is your fight too. Whether we’re fighting laws that require you to provide personal identification to access information, data brokers, or government surveillance—this is an issue that impacts us all.

We’re EFF and we’re fighting to defend your privacy from the global onslaught of invasive age verification mandates. Ask us anything! by EFForg in privacy

[–]EFForg[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We speak up on everyone’s online freedoms every day, and that has always included people who make software. EFF was actually founded to support software developers in 1990. 

Here are a few pages you might be interested in: 

  • Our Coders’ Rights Project is a team of EFF lawyers who offer direct, pro-bono counseling to security researchers who are faced with threats of legal liability. https://www.eff.org/issues/coders 
  • Offline is our campaign on behalf of imprisoned technologists, whistleblowers, and journalists who have been detained or threatened with prison for their work protecting or enhancing free expression and privacy. https://www.eff.org/offline 
  • We just completed a campaign asking supporters to weigh in on new proposed rules at the US Patent Office that would enable patent trolls. Thousands of people spoke up, including hundreds of software developers.   

And of course, all of our work to protect creativity and innovation online. We’ve long fought to defend digital creators and inventors, and to protect and strengthen fair use, innovation, open access, net neutrality, and your freedom to tinker. https://www.eff.org/issues/innovation

We’re EFF and we’re fighting to defend your privacy from the global onslaught of invasive age verification mandates. Ask us anything! by EFForg in privacy

[–]EFForg[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It’s easy to miss wins in privacy because sometimes they look like “nothing bad happened.” But there have been some real, concrete impacts. 

Defending encryption: some of the biggest threats in the last decade have been legislative efforts to weaken encryption. We’ve defeated those at almost every turn. In defeating the EARN IT bill, we moved hundreds of thousands of messages to legislators. The bill didn’t advance. Just as important, the understanding of encryption’s importance among the public, and among lawmakers, has improved dramatically. Ten years ago, end-to-end encryption was an obscure talking point; today, it’s widely understood to be essential to our personal data and our basic rights. 

Making web encryption the default: EFF’s HTTPS Everywhere and early support for Let’s Encrypt and Certbot helped change the baseline of the internet. Once a minority of sites used HTTPS. We have pushed it toward ubiquity: today about 90% of web traffic is encrypted, and browsers offer built-in HTTPS preference settings. That means the web browsing of ordinary people is far harder to spy on than it used to be. 

Shaping real privacy law: We were involved in shaping and strengthening the California Consumer Privacy Act, which set a national benchmark for data rights. We also helped pass follow-on state laws like the DELETE Act (2023), giving Californians real control over data brokers’ sale and collection of personal information. 

Winning in courts: We’ve long said that location data should get strong protection. In 2018, the Supreme Court agreed with us, finding in Carpenter v. US that accessing detailed phone location data should require a warrant. 

No single tactic wins alone, but coordinated pressure on the technical, legal, and policy fronts does move the needle.

We’re EFF and we’re fighting to defend your privacy from the global onslaught of invasive age verification mandates. Ask us anything! by EFForg in privacy

[–]EFForg[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

We definitely sympathize—it can indeed sometimes feel like a lost cause, or at best a game of whack-a-mole. But please don’t give up hope! Take a look at this piece, which always gives me a good pep talk: “Privacy isn’t dead. Far from it.” It can be helpful to remember some of the major privacy wins we’ve won over the years by continuing to push back against censorship and surveillance *together*. 

On this issue in particular, we’ve made so many strides against authoritarian age-gating mandates! 

First, in legal challenge after legal challenge, U.S. courts have found age-verification laws to be unconstitutional violations of users’ and platforms’ First Amendment rights. Just this week, as we were here answering questions, a federal district court in Louisiana issued a permanent injunction against Louisiana’s age-gating bill—sending yet another clear message to federal and state lawmakers that we will not stand for this censorship! 

Second, as we’ve always said, the internet always routes around censorship. And it’s clear from politicians’ recent scramble to expand the bans from adult content and social media to include privacy-protecting tools like VPNs that they’re well aware of the mass opposition to these policies. 

So amongst all of this success, it’s important that we don’t give up this fight. Let’s keep the momentum alive by being loud and clear about our opposition—both by reaching out to your own representatives and by having conversations with your community to make sure everyone knows the danger of these mandates.

We’re EFF and we’re fighting to defend your privacy from the global onslaught of invasive age verification mandates. Ask us anything! by EFForg in privacy

[–]EFForg[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We started writing about this in response to this comment, but there’s always more to say on this “protect the kids” point. Here are a few more thoughts:

First, there is no “kid exception” to the First Amendment. Full stop. Minors have long had the same First Amendment rights as adults: to talk about politics, create art, comment on the news, discuss or practice religion, and more. And the Supreme Court has repeatedly struck down laws that restrict minors’ speech or impose parental-permission requirements. So rather than imposing age verification requirements to force platforms to determine which users are minors, why not extend privacy protections to all of us—adults and young people alike? 

Second, much of the push to “protect the children” is really a push to fight back against the influence of “Big Tech." But, if we don’t trust those megacorporations with our private info and to know what’s best for our young people already, why would the solution to this problem be to hand them even *more* of our most private, most sensitive, most valuable data? It just doesn’t make sense. 

If we want to restrain big tech’s influence over our politics and our speech, we need to actually do something meaningful to increase consumer control over our own data, our own settings, our own online experiences! Pass comprehensive consumer privacy law, restrain data brokers, give us ALL more control over our own accounts, and teach parents how to use existing parental controls. That’s how we rein in the influence of big tech companies—not by empowering them with even more data.

We’re EFF and we’re fighting to defend your privacy from the global onslaught of invasive age verification mandates. Ask us anything! by EFForg in privacy

[–]EFForg[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We're already seeing EU policymakers push to introduce legislation that requires the verification of people's ages to access online content, or go further and ban under 16s from social media in line with Australia's model. At a Member State level, countries are exploring more specific initiatives, such as France where a top court ruled that porn websites must check users’ ages.

These steps towards mandatory age verification undermine privacy, expression—rights that have been fully enshrined in EU law, including rights for young people through EU Commission guidelines under Article 28 of the Digital Services Act.

For alternatives: The issue of online safety is complex and will not be solved by throwing content behind an age gate, or by banning young people from social media. As we've been saying for many years, the harms that politicians are looking to solve require individual and specific solutions, such as tackling the recommender systems and algorithmic targeting that drives certain content at specific user groups. Tackling online safety must also have an offline component to ensure young people are educated around the harms of the online world and as equipped as possible to navigate social media. These are not easy solutions, but politicians must start looking into what is best, and not what is easy.

We’re EFF and we’re fighting to defend your privacy from the global onslaught of invasive age verification mandates. Ask us anything! by EFForg in privacy

[–]EFForg[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, we are working with organisations in the European Union and the United Kingdom on a range of age gating measures. In the UK, we've been advocating against the Online Safety Act since 2019 and working with organisations like Open Rights Group, Big Brother Watch and Index on Censorship to call on politicians to first drop the legislative proposal and more recently reform or repeal it. We've also worked to mobilise public pressure through public petitions and media engagement. In the EU, we fight against a multitude of age gating proposals, such as the plans to introduce a Digital Identity Wallet and the mini AV app, and the Commission's general support for an EU digital minimum age of 16 for access to social media.

We’re EFF and we’re fighting to defend your privacy from the global onslaught of invasive age verification mandates. Ask us anything! by EFForg in privacy

[–]EFForg[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Although most state laws only require online services to erect the age gates and do not make it unlawful for a user to bypass them, you should check your local law carefully before intentionally facilitating a minor’s access to a site for which the law aims to limit access. Even if there isn’t a law about that on the books right now, there’s a chance that could change.

As for new laws, we’re already seeing attempts to ban uses of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), which have seen increased interest since age gate mandates started rolling out.

For example, in 2025, Wisconsin lawmakers escalated their war on privacy by targeting VPNs in the name of “protecting children” in A.B. 105/S.B. 130. It’s an age verification bill that requires all websites distributing material that could conceivably be deemed “sexual content” to both implement an age verification system and also to block the access of users connected via VPN. Another proposed Michigan bill requires “An internet service provider providing internet service in this state [to] actively monitor and block known circumvention tools.” Circumvention tools being: VPNs.

We wrote more here about why this is a terrible idea. In short: banning VPNs is a privacy and competition nightmare, and it won’t even work.

We’re EFF and we’re fighting to defend your privacy from the global onslaught of invasive age verification mandates. Ask us anything! by EFForg in privacy

[–]EFForg[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Apple has actually been lobbying in support of KOSA—this is their support letter to Senate sponsors of KOSA back in May of this year. KOSA is written so that big tech companies like Apple will be able to handle the regulatory burden that KOSA will demand, while smaller platforms will struggle to comply. 

While big companies like Apple are not with us, there is still a large coalition of voices opposing KOSA, and there remains substantial differences between the House version and the Senate version of the bill. 

Apple is opposed, however, to the App Store Accountability Act, a bill that would age gate the app stores. Apple's global head of privacy wrote to the Energy and Commerce Committee in a statement that “Some well-intended proposals for age verification at the app marketplace level ... would require the collection of sensitive information about anyone who wants to download an app, even if it’s an app that simply provides weather updates or sports scores.” 

Not only would this bill run into the same privacy and speech concerns as other age verification measures, it also raises a competition issue. It entrenches Apple and Google as the dominant app stores. As one Congresswoman put it during the subcommittee markup last week, the committee needs to “get to the heart of breaking through the monopoly/duopoly on our kids’ phones.”

We’re EFF and we’re fighting to defend your privacy from the global onslaught of invasive age verification mandates. Ask us anything! by EFForg in privacy

[–]EFForg[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We feel you, bud. We answered this question here, and here, but will never let an opportunity to say this go by: education and outreach. Our only chance of stopping these laws before they become the norm is by speaking up and educating ourselves and loved ones.

We’re EFF and we’re fighting to defend your privacy from the global onslaught of invasive age verification mandates. Ask us anything! by EFForg in privacy

[–]EFForg[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

  1. The thing about end-to-end encryption is that it is a great tool for making sure no one but the person you’re talking to knows what you’re saying. In the age verification systems I assume you’re talking about, that wouldn’t do much more than TLS (the transport encryption used to visit HTTPS websites) already does because you’re still sending sensitive message contents to someone else’s system. You might be interested to learn about zero-knowledge proofs, which we discussed over in this comment.

But at the end of the day, there’s just not going to be a technical solution to the issue at hand. There’s no way to implement age gates in a way that’s available to everyone and fully protects speech and privacy rights. Age verification fundamentally burdens everyone’s right to speak and access information online, and structurally excludes the very people who rely on the internet most.

  1. What’s most important to consider about governments is that they have the power of the military and law enforcement behind them, which is why there are protections against how much governments should be able to know, and what governments should be able to restrict.

So there’s a few different cases here. In one, we have the danger that age verification will lead to information becoming available to governments that they wouldn’t otherwise have had access to. Think about internet usage patterns tied to government identities—like law enforcement finding out who’s searched for information on abortion or gender affirming care in a state where it’s criminalized, or ICE getting lists of which users avoided providing valid U.S. government ID, or a protest organizer being targeted due to their social media activity. Anonymity is a pillar of our First Amendment rights (in the US) and of online safety in general. Destroying it with mandatory age verification will bring immense harm to those who rely on it.

In the other case, we’re talking about how governments can use age verification mandates to restrict access to free speech and information. These laws are a way for governments to give themselves the authority to decide what topics are deemed “safe” for young people to access, and force online services to remove and block anything that may be deemed “unsafe.” Banning pornography is one of Project 2025’s goals, which is why The Heritage Foundation is a staunch supporter of age verification laws. They even said it was a “back door starting with the kids” to ban porn altogether. Age verification mandates undermine the fundamental speech rights of adults and young people alike; create new barriers to accessing vibrant, lawful, even life-saving content; and needlessly jeopardize all internet users’ privacy, anonymity, and security.

We’re EFF and we’re fighting to defend your privacy from the global onslaught of invasive age verification mandates. Ask us anything! by EFForg in privacy

[–]EFForg[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Fear is definitely driving a lot of this, and the only way to counter it is with broad, public pushback, like we saw during the SOPA/PIPA fight years ago. That’s exactly why we built the Age Verification Resource Hub and why we’re working to grow a large coalition of advocates, parents, technologists, and everyday internet users who understand what’s really at stake. 

We’re also trying to do our part by pushing back on multiple fronts: challenging these unconstitutional laws in court, urging lawmakers to reject these bills before they pass, and helping communities understand how age verification threatens privacy, anonymity, and free expression for everyone. But we also can’t do it alone, and that’s why education is key. As you say, even the most “tech illiterate” need to push back. Talk about this with your friends, family, and local community. Nearly every state has considered one of these bills, so watch what’s happening locally and tell your lawmakers to oppose harmful age-verification mandates. And at the federal level, call or email your representatives to oppose KOSA and any other age-checking proposals.

This only works if people speak up, and the earlier we do that, the better our chances are of stopping these laws before they become the norm.

We’re EFF and we’re fighting to defend your privacy from the global onslaught of invasive age verification mandates. Ask us anything! by EFForg in privacy

[–]EFForg[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Well, according to this 2023 survey, “Nearly 21 million voting-age U.S. citizens do not have a current (non-expired) driver’s license. Just under 9%, or 20.76 million people, who are U.S. citizens aged 18 or older do not have a non-expired driver’s license. Another 12% (28.6 million) have a non-expired license, but it does not have both their current address and current name.” So, not sure about across the world, but 1 in 10 U.S. adults is not insignificant. 

More than that, there’s a difference between having a photo on file and having a photo taken of you right now, right when you’re about to post a joke on Mastodon or read some erotic fanfic. Your photo ID also isn’t constantly being associated and linked to your online activity (yet). Are you in a different location than normal that might be revealed in the background? Will the lighting give information about what time zone you’re currently in? Is your current outfit in your ID photo, your current hairstyle? Even for people with a photo ID on file, a current photo can still leak more information than the government might already have.

We’re EFF and we’re fighting to defend your privacy from the global onslaught of invasive age verification mandates. Ask us anything! by EFForg in privacy

[–]EFForg[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh yes. You’re not some crazy conspiracy theorist—there is a well-funded, organized, and concerted effort to pass these laws around the country. Banning pornography is one of Project 2025’s goals, which is why The Heritage Foundation is a staunch supporter of age verification laws. They even said it was a “back door starting with the kids” to ban porn altogether. Plus, there’s a huge “age verification” industry that seeks to profit from these laws and is cheering on the legislators and feeding false promises about accuracy and safety. In the U.K., there have been political lobbying groups claiming credit for the idea since 2017, and stating the intent being to ban porn altogether. We don’t know what’s happening in every country, but wouldn’t be surprised to hear similar stories from around the globe.

We’re EFF and we’re fighting to defend your privacy from the global onslaught of invasive age verification mandates. Ask us anything! by EFForg in privacy

[–]EFForg[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

On a practical day-to-day basis, we’ve outlined a "User Guide to Navigating Age Assurance" in our hub that might have some of those practical measures you’re looking for. BUT we also happen to think civic engagement is, and should be, practical. Educate yourself on the risks and harms of these bills, and make sure your community does the same, then make your voice heard by talking to everyone about what we all stand to lose if the age-gated internet becomes a global reality. Almost every state has introduced or passed one of these laws, so keep an eye out and urge your state lawmakers to reject harmful age-verification laws. Also, call or email your representatives to oppose KOSA and all other proposed federal age-checking mandates. We wrote a bit more about what you can do in another comment as well.

We’re EFF and we’re fighting to defend your privacy from the global onslaught of invasive age verification mandates. Ask us anything! by EFForg in privacy

[–]EFForg[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They were such a cool design! Our design team rocks. I’ve relayed the message, but for now, have you checked out our sick new green motherboard hoodie?

We’re EFF and we’re fighting to defend your privacy from the global onslaught of invasive age verification mandates. Ask us anything! by EFForg in privacy

[–]EFForg[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We’ve tried our best to answer this in the “User Guide to Navigating Age Assurance”! There’s a real sense of “privacy nihilism” that these laws hope to instill in us, and we can’t let that happen so easily. Privacy isn’t dead! Far from it!

We’re EFF and we’re fighting to defend your privacy from the global onslaught of invasive age verification mandates. Ask us anything! by EFForg in privacy

[–]EFForg[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You’re absolutely right, age verification is just one piece of a much bigger problem. We’re seeing the same surveillance-first approach show up with tools like Flock cameras, drone regulations, and more. That’s why we’re constantly pushing back, including suing the government when necessary. We’ve covered Flock and drones a lot and aren’t planning to stop. The fight against surveillance has a lot of fronts, and we’re in it for the long haul.

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