EFFecting Change: The Human Cost of Online Age Verification

Age verification mandates are spreading fast, and they’re ushering in a new age of online surveillance, censorship, and exclusion for everyone—not just young people. Age-gating laws generally require websites and apps to collect sensitive data from every user, often through invasive tools like ID checks, biometric scans, or other dubious “estimation” methods, before granting them access to certain content or services. Lawmakers tout these laws as the silver-bullet solution to “kids’ online safety,” but in reality, age-verification mandates wall off large swaths of the web, build sweeping new surveillance infrastructure, increase the risk of data breaches and real-life privacy harms, and threaten the anonymity that has long allowed people to seek support, explore new ideas, and organize and build community online.

Join EFF’s Rindala Alajaji and Alexis Hancock along with Hana Memon from Gen-Z for Change and Cynthia Conti-Cook from Collaborative Research Center for Resilience for a conversation about what we stand to lose as more and more governments push to age-gate the web. We’ll break down how these laws work, who they exclude, and how these mandates threaten privacy and free expression for people of all ages. The conversation will be followed by a live Q&A. 

Accessibility

This event will be live-captioned and recorded. EFF is committed to improving accessibility for our events. If you have any accessibility questions regarding the event, please contact [email protected].

Event Expectations

EFF is dedicated to a harassment-free experience for everyone, and all participants are encouraged to view our full Event Expectations.

Upcoming Events

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Recording

We hope you and your friends can join us live! If you can’t make it, we’ll post the recording afterward on YouTube and the Internet Archive!