The Age-Verification Trap
Platforms are caught in a dilemma: enforce age restrictions or protect user privacy. How are they navigating this tricky terrain?
The Age-Verification Trap
Platforms are caught in a dilemma: enforce age restrictions or protect user privacy. How are they navigating this tricky terrain?
Discord Isn't Requiring a Face Scan — Your Legislators Are
Yesterday's headline in The Verge had people planning their Discord exodus overnight. But the real story isn't about Discord — it's about legislators demanding surveillance infrastructure.
Age Assurance Methods Explained
This blog also appears in our Age Verification Resource Hub: our one-stop shop for users seeking to understand what age-gating laws actually do, what’s at stake, how to protect yourself, and why EFF
Age assurance across Europe: how countries are safeguarding minors online
In 2024, regulators and online service providers fully aligned around the Digital Services Act (DSA), a groundbreaking piece of legislation that regulates the provision of online services within the EU, regardless of whether the provider is based in Europe or not. This year, the focus has shifted to implementing these legislative principles in practice. In particular, measures aimed at safeguarding minors have gained significant momentum, with age verification being a key example.
Guide to age assurance
The internet offers children and young people many empowering opportunities for personal growth, learning, and social exchange. However, along with these great benefits can come certain risks, including children facing content or services that may be harmful to them. Age assurance is one solution that can be used to keep children safe from online risks.
Age Verification and Age Gating: Resource Hub
Age verification (or age-gating) laws generally require online services to check, estimate, or verify all users’ ages—often through invasive tools like ID checks, biometric scans, or other dubious
So, You’ve Hit An Age Gate. What Now?
EFF is against age gating and age verification mandates, and we hope we’ll win in getting existing ones overturned and new ones prevented. But mandates are already in effect, an…
10 (Not So) Hidden Dangers of Age Verification
It’s nearly the end of 2025, and half of the US and the UK now require you to upload your ID or scan your face to watch “sexual content.” A handful of states and Australia now have various
Collection
Updated 4mo
While this absolutely sucks, we are going to see a lot more places implementing universal global age verification over this next year, because the number of states and countries legally requiring it has gotten to the point no one can keep up anymore.
The Verge
Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month
