Source: User Mag
Governments across the US, UK, Europe, and Australia are using child protection rhetoric to justify mandatory digital ID and age verification systems. Once implemented, this infrastructure will expand beyond age gating. These bills represent a significant expansion of state surveillance capacity disguised as parental control, transferring identity verification power from platforms to government databases with minimal public debate about the permanence of the trade-off. The pattern mirrors post-9/11 security expansions: emergency measures justified by protecting the vulnerable that become normalized data collection tools exploited for purposes far removed from their original justification.