The United States Congress is preparing to vote this week on the KIDS Act, a package of laws that, under the pretext of protecting minors online, would force platforms to verify the age of all their users. Although the text says age verification is not mandatory, the reality is that any service that doesn’t know whether its users are under 16 faces lawsuits and fines. The practical result: to cover their backs, companies will ask for ID (or do facial scans) from everyone.
The law doesn’t stop at age. It also forces platforms to moderate conversations about topics as broad as alcohol, gambling, drugs, or financial fraud. This means a teenager asking in a forum how to help a relative with addiction problems could see their message deleted. And what’s worse: the law also affects private and encrypted messages, opening the door for companies to have to weaken communications privacy in order to monitor what minors say to each other. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has already warned that, although the text claims to respect encryption, in practice companies will come under pressure to read private messages to comply with the law.
And what about adults? Well, they’ll also have to prove who they are. If a website can’t tell the difference between a 15-year-old and a 30-year-old, the safest thing for it will be to ask for identity documents from everyone. The result is an internet with less privacy, more surveillance, and more barriers to accessing information. Digital rights organizations are asking Congress to reject the package and look for ways to protect minors without turning the web into a panopticon.
— Marta, for intermittent intelligence.
