The Great British Firewall: Age Verification has Failed

Companies are choosing age verification providers with dodgy privacy policies

You don’t get to choose the company that verifies your age when you try and access an age gated service. Companies don’t have to choose trusted or certified providers that meet specific privacy or security standards. So far, services such as Reddit, Grindr and Bluesky have chosen age verification providers based outside of the UK with concerning privacy policies.

A wide-range of content gets placed behind age-gates

Age verification doesn’t just affect porn sites but also social media platforms. We’re already seeing reports of content being age gated when it really shouldn’t be. These include: sexual health subreddits including r/STD, r/safesexPH and r/stopsmoking; news subreddits including r/Aljazeera and r/israelexposed; and an X post featuring a speech about grooming gangs by Katie Lam MP.

In addition, anyone under 18 years is unable to send a direct message on BlueSky and Xbox are going to prevent under 18s from talking, texting or sending invites to play a game with anyone who isn’t already on their friends list. Spotify are asking users to prove their age in order to access 18+ music videos and threatening to kick them off theb platform if they fail to do so.

There are also a number of small sites and forums who have simply closed down or geo blocked UK users because the demands of the Online Safety Act and the threat of criminalisation and fines are too much for the people – often volunteers – who run them.

ORG is also worried about the proscription of Palestine Action could play out, as the OSA now obliges their content and anything that may be considered to be supporting them to be assessed by platforms as likely terrorist material. UK terror legislation plus the OSA create a massive opportunity for government to mandate sweeping online censorship.

It’s not even going to work

Internet users clearly don’t trust age verification and are choosing ways to get round it. The BBC has reported that the most downloaded apps on Apple’s App store are Virtual private networks (VPNs). Sky has reported how easy it is bypass controls, and that there were more than 60k dark web users by 10am on the day that age verification came into effect.

Age verification could even push teens towards riskier behaviour such as using the dark web, dodgy free VPNs or falling for scams. There are inevitable rumours that banning VPNs is next, not helped by Government warnings that platforms risk fines if they promote VPNs.

What needs to happen

We’re calling for Ofcom and the government to take immediate action to:

• Regulate the age verification industry to make sure there are high standards for privacy and security. We’re inviting people to sign our open letter to the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology.

• Limit the scope of the Online Safety Act to minimise the threats to freedom of expression and the harms of censorship, including broad age verification requirements well beyond adult content.

• Invest in a public information campaign to help children and adults to navigate online safety and to learn about the privacy risks that age verification itself brings.