thousands of individuals across the United States have turned to VPN services to evade age verification needed for accessing online content. While there are valid arguments for implementing age verification to safeguard teenagers and children from explicit material, there are numerous issues related to how companies have managed this sensitive information historically.
The primary concern with age verification services is the management of the private data needed to confirm your age. Recently, this issue has been highlighted by the community’s apprehensions regarding Discord’s initiative to mandate age verification for all accounts; however, the company has since retracted its intentions to enforce a widespread implementation of this system in the near term. Although this is a positive development for Discord users, other platforms are still advocating for age verification, such as Spotify, which may deactivate accounts it considers insufficiently aged. Additionally, Google is employing AI to assess individuals’ ages. Fortunately, a few states have begun exploring alternative methods to tackle this issue, going beyond merely requiring apps to check age. Instead, California and now Colorado aim to confirm a user’s age at the device level.
Seems like a positive development, right? In certain respects, it undeniably is. Yet, it still fails to tackle the major concern: the necessity of disclosing your personal information merely to access online content.