Want to Google your symptoms, join an ICE watch group on Facebook or scroll Reddit? You might need to show ID. Age verification is coming to platforms near you. Worse, it’ll come at the expense of your rights.

More than 25 states, and multiple countries, have enacted laws requiring mixed-audience websites to verify users’ ages to prevent access by children. Some of these laws target adult content providers explicitly while others apply these requirements to a wide array of websites, from Google search to Coursera to the New York Times.

Simultaneously, social media bans for kids proposed around the world, ranging from Canada to India, and enacted in other countries like Australia, require platforms to verify all users’ ages so they can restrict access to minors.

As has been written on this in the Guardian before, age verification fundamentally expands data collected on all users. And although pitched as a common-sense policy to protect children online, it erodes safety for all users. Age verification will require users to hand over data before being granted access to online spaces.

Some platforms may require government ID to prove age while others may collect and process other sensitive data believed to be a proxy for age, such as face scans or search queries. Either way, users will have to provide more information about themselves to access the web, jeopardizing their anonymity online.

Though age verification providers and platforms they work with promise that this information is collected with the sole intent of assigning age........

© The Guardian