Wisconsin’s S.B. 130 / A.B. 105 is a spectacularly bad idea. It’s an age-verification bill that effectively bans VPN access to certain websites for Wisconsinites and censors lawful speech. We wrote about it last November in our blog “Lawmakers Want to Ban VPNs—And They Have No Idea What They’re Doing,” but since then, the bill […]
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Discord has begun rolling out mandatory age verification and the internet is, understandably, freaking out. At EFF, we’ve been raising the alarm about age verification mandates for years. In December, we launched our Age Verification Resource Hub to push back against laws and platform policies that require users to hand over sensitive personal information just […]
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2025 was the year age verification went from a fringe policy experiment to a sweeping reality across the United States. Half of the U.S. now mandates age verification for accessing adult content or social media platforms. Nine states saw their laws take effect this year alone, with more coming in 2026. The good news is […]
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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 requirements to verify your age before you can create a social media account. Age-verification laws may sound […]
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Remember when you thought age verification laws couldn’t get any worse? Well, lawmakers in Wisconsin, Michigan, and beyond are about to blow you away. It’s unfortunately no longer enough to force websites to check your government-issued ID before you can access certain content, because politicians have now discovered that people are using Virtual Private Networks […]
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If you’ve been following the wave of age-gating laws sweeping across the country and the globe, you’ve probably noticed that lawmakers, tech companies, and advocates all seem to be using different terms for what sounds like the same thing. Age verification, age assurance, age estimation, age gating—they get thrown around interchangeably, but they technically mean […]
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BY RINDALA ALAJAJI | September 17, 2025 This is the second instalment in a ten-part blog series documenting EFF’s findings from the Stop Censoring Abortion campaign. You can read additional posts here. During our Stop Censoring Abortion campaign, we set out to collect and spotlight the growing number of stories from people and organizations that have […]
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If you’ve read about the sudden appearance of age verification across the internet in the UK and thought it would never happen in the U.S., take note: many politicians want the same or even more strict laws. As of July 1st, South Dakota and Wyoming enacted laws requiring any website that hosts any sexual content […]
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In a promising sign that public pressure works, several crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs, also known as “fake clinics”) have quietly scrubbed misleading language about privacy protections from their websites. Earlier this year, EFF sent complaints to attorneys general in eight states (FL, TX, AR, and MO, TN, OK, NE, and NC), asking them to investigate […]
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If you thought going to a Pride event or drag show was just another night out, think again. If you were in Florida, it might land your name in a government database. That’s what’s happening in Vero Beach, FL, where the Florida Attorney General’s office has subpoenaed a local restaurant, The Kilted Mermaid, demanding surveillance […]
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