🚫 Don't Let Congress Age-Gate the Internet | EFFector 38.13
The House of Representatives has passed the KIDS Act, a legislative package aimed at restricting minors' access to online content through age verification requirements. The Electronic Frontier Foundation argues the bill prioritizes surveillance over privacy and would affect far more than just young users.
Why this matters: Age verification sounds reasonable until you think about what it actually requires. To check whether someone is old enough, platforms need to collect identity documents from everyone. That means adults lose anonymity online to protect kids from content — a tradeoff that mostly benefits data brokers and governments, not children. The EFF's core point is the right one: if the goal is protecting kids, more surveillance is not a privacy-neutral tool. It is a permanent infrastructure that outlasts any good intention behind it.
Who should care: Privacy officers · Cybersecurity · General readers · Policy
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