EFF launches Age Verification Hub

This keeps coming up and we keep having the same debates about what Age Verification isn't.

For the folks in the back row:

Age Verification isn't about Kids or Censorship, It's about Surveillance

Age Verification isn't about Kids or Censorship, It's about Surveillance

Age Verification isn't about Kids or Censorship, It's about Surveillance

Without even reaching for my tinfoil hat, the strategy at work here is clear [0 1 2]. If we have to know that you're not a minor, then we also have to know who you are so we can make any techniques to obfuscate that illegal. By turning this from "keep an eye on your kids" to "prove you're not a kid" they've created the conditions to make privacy itself illegal.

VPNs are next. Then PGP. Then anything else that makes it hard for them to know who you are, what you say, and who you say it to.

Please, please don't fall into the trap and start discussing whether or not this is going to be effective to protect kids. It isn't, and that isn't the point.

0 https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/11/lawmakers-want-ban-vpn...

1 https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/vpn-usage...

2 https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2025-09-15/debates/57714...

I am someone who is very privacy focused. I've literally never had a social media account on any platform and I'm 42. From day one of facebook, I never wanted my information online. Like many here, I'm deeply concerned about privacy and surveillance.

In real life, we think age verification is a good thing. Kids shouldn't buy porn. Teenagers shouldn't get into bars. etc... There has to be room somewhere for reasonable discussion about making sure children do not have access to things they shouldn't. I think it's important to note, that complete dismissal of this idea only turns away your allies and hurts our cause in the long run.

I'm not dismissing that idea. It is a perfectly reasonable thing to think about, part of why we have age verification techniques that already work well in critical places like online vape shops.

I'm even willing to talk about the possibility that we could use more robust systems deployed more broadly. A lot of folks here are talking about ZKPs in this regard, and that's not a bad idea at all.

The issue I'm trying to sound the horn on is that the current push for AF in the US and EU has nothing to do with kids. I think you could put together a working group on ZKPs and Age Verification, write up a paper and run experiments, and when you bring it to the lawmakers they're gonna say something to the tune of:

"yeah but that's not trustworthy enough and too technical for people to understand so we're just going to serve legal notices to VPN providers instead to tell them that they can't anymore"

...or something to that tune. I'm not a mind reader, I've just read the reports (by lawmakers) mentioning VPNs as an "area of concern".

This is a political gambit and not a new one. The more we treat the current issue as having anything to do with protecting kids the more we legitimize what is an obvious grift.

> The issue I'm trying to sound the horn on is that the current push for AF in the US and EU has nothing to do with kids. I think you could put together a working group on ZKPs and Age Verification, write up a paper and run experiments, and when you bring it to the lawmakers they're gonna say something to the tune of:

The EU is currently doing large-scale field tries of the EU Digital Identity Wallet, which they have been working on for several years. It uses ZKPs for age verification. They expect to roll it out to the public near the end of 2026.

I appreciate the mention - i had not yet heard of this EU DIW thing. That said, I can't find any resources on it that mention the use of ZKPs. Could you share a link?