When No ID Means No Internet

Age verification laws are expanding worldwide and are being pitched as a modest privacy tradeoff to protect children, but they function as gatekeeping mechanisms that bar people who cannot produce government-issued ID. Recent measures include Australia’s ban on social accounts for under-16s, India’s DPDP law with verifiable parental consent, the UK’s Online Safety Act requiring verification for services with content deemed harmful to under-18s, numerous U.S. state laws, and an EU expert recommendation to restrict social media under age 13. These proposals typically rely on passports, driver’s licenses, credit cards, or digital identity checks that require collecting sensitive personal data and deploying error-prone technologies.

ID-based age assurance disproportionately excludes marginalized populations and undermines access to information and freedom of expression. Roughly 850 million people worldwide lack ID; in the U.S., about 15 million adults lack a driver’s license and 2.6 million lack any government photo ID. Women, rural residents, young adults, stateless groups (Rohingya, Kuwait’s Bidoon), minorities (e.g., Baha’i in Egypt), and people affected by systems like Kafala face heightened barriers. Age-gating increases mass surveillance and mistaken exclusion, reshapes who can participate in online public life, and offers a technocratic shortcut that ignores structural problems. Advocates warn these laws harm the very people they claim to protect and are organizing to resist ID-based verification and promote less invasive protections.