Online harms: Millions could be forced to use unregulated age verification
Open Rights Group has responded to the government’s latest announcements on online safety, including proposals to:
- Introduce ‘Henry VIII’ powers to the Children Wellbeing and Schools Bill so that a social media ban for under 16s can be brought in through a Statutory Instrument rather than primary legislation.
- Make AI chatbot providers abide by duties in the Online Safety Act to remove illegal content.
- Consult on future age restrictions to access to social media, VPNs and AI chatbots.
- Consult on how tech companies can restrict devices so that images suspected of being child sexual abuse material (CSAM) can not be sent or received.
Big Tech Programme Manager James Baker said:
“The Government is playing whack-a-mole with online safety, focusing on individual harms and product features instead of confronting the structural power of dominant tech companies. By abandoning comprehensive AI regulation under pressure from Big Tech, it is allowing private actors to shape the rules of digital life without democratic oversight.
“It has also failed to regulate the age assurance industry even as it pushes plans that will force millions of people to hand over their biometrics or personal documents in order to access everyday online content.”
Failure to regulate age assurance industry
Open Rights Group has written to the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, Liz Kendall MP calling for regulation of age assurance providers operating under the Online Safety Act. The letter was also signed by Age Verification Providers Association (AVPA) and over 600 members of the public.
A ban on social media for under 16s would require everyone to prove their age in order to use social media platforms. The rapid expansion of age assurance risks creating a new layer of digital infrastructure that concentrates power over identity, biometrics and access to public life in the hands of private companies, with limited democratic oversight or public accountability.
Going through an age verification process often involves sending irreversible biometric identifiers into global commercial data ecosystems. There are already examples of platforms using the additional data gained from these processes to target people with harmful online advertising.
The measures announced, including age gating VPNs, AI Chat bots, or features such as infinitive scrolling, would compel millions more people to hand their sensitive bio-metric data over to big tech.
It is platforms, not users, that decide which age verification providers are use. Many users may be unaware of the investors and financial networks behind the identity infrastructure now being embedded into everyday internet use, and the links some of those networks have to wider surveillance, defence, and intelligence ecosystems.
For example, Roblox, Reddit and Discord users have to submit facial scans to the age verification provider Persona, a company that Peter Thiel, co-founder of surveillance and data analytics company Palantir, has heavily invested in.
ORG is asking the Government, ICO, and Ofcom to establish compulsory privacy and security standards for age verification providers to ensure that users’ sensitive data is protected.
Henry VIII powers
Henry VIII clauses are delegated legislative powers that allow the government to override or amend primary legislation as it was enacted by Parliament.
It is being reported that the Government will, through an amendment to the Children Wellbeing and Schools Bill, introduce such powers to enable a social media ban to be brought in swiftly.
This would virtually remove parliamentary scrutiny: “no SI has been rejected by the House of Commons since 1979”.1
Henry VIII powers, in the words of the House of Lords, “make it harder for Parliament to scrutinise the policy aims of the bill and can raise concerns about legal certainty”.2
The Government has already introduced such powers in the Data Use and Access Act 2025, which could be used to modify UK data protection law.
Baker added:
“Government has not spoken to civil liberties groups about these proposals. It is deeply concerning that the government appears to pursuing a strategy of expanding ministerial powers that will allow them – and future governments – to introduce controversial new policies without full parliamentary scrutiny.”
Footnotes
1 The Hansard Society, Delegated legislation: the problems with the process, p.16 https://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/publications/reports/delegated-legislation-the-problems-with-the-process
2 Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, Democracy Denied? The urgent need to rebalance power between Parliament and the Executive, https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld5802/ldselect/lddelreg/106/10602.htm
