Age verification laws are the Trojan horse for the digital control grid

Within a very short period of time, and without any broader public debate, Western governments have quietly rolled out age verification laws at the operating-system level, presenting them as tools to protect children online. For instance, California's Digital Age Assurance Act, which will take effect on 1 January 2027, requires operating systems providers to collect age-related information from users when they set up their account. Similar legislative measures were introduced at the U.S. federal level and in other jurisdictions such as Brazil or the EU.

While the stated goal of protecting minors may sound reasonable, most people seem unaware that these proposals raise serious concerns about privacy, surveillance, population control and digital freedom. Practically speaking, they are a trojan horse for ID collection and the total digital surveillance state.

First of all, the most immediate concern is the amount of personal information required for age verification. Under these proposed systems, users would need to upload passports, identity cards, biometric scans or facial recognition data to prove their age, which would create enormous databases of highly sensitive information directly tied to people's devices and online activities. Once such infrastructure is set up, it becomes increasingly difficult to limit how the data may be used in the future, especially by governments.

But not only governments could expand their control grid. Companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Google or other platform providers already control app stores, permissions and device-level security. Adding mandatory age verification would allow both governments and companies to gain even deeper insight into users' identities, browsing habits and software usage. Critics fear that this could normalize continuous identity checks for basic internet access.

There are also major cybersecurity risks. Centralized identity systems and databases frequently become attractive targets for hackers. Data breaches involving identity documents are already common and expanding age verification would increase the amount of valuable personal data stored online.

Another concern are the implications for free expression. Free and anonymous access to the internet has historically protected journalists, whistleblowers, political dissidents and ordinary citizens seeking sensitive information or expressing their opinions. If every device or operating system requires verified identity credentials, anonymity could gradually disappear from the digital world.

There is also a reasonable fear that age verification systems are likely to expand beyond their original purpose. What begins as child protection could evolve into broader digital identification systems used for access control, online censorship or financial monitoring. And there is already substantial evidence pointing in this direction, such as proposals to ban VPNs and end-to-end encryption or to criminalize digital currencies. Some legislative proposals have even gone so far as to target open source software, which is one of the backbones of digital technologies.

It is hard to believe that these measures are truly about protecting children when there are countless less intrusive alternatives that could be pursued. People really need to wake up. Most of us are responsible adults, who obey the law and are fully capable of protecting their children without constant government oversight. As for me, it will be the hill worth dying for in order to save what is left of our democracies, liberties and digital privacy.