Shoshana Weissmann, director of digital media at the R Street Institute, commented on new regulations that require age verification for online users. She compared these measures to showing identification at a liquor store or nightclub, noting that while it may seem like a routine inconvenience, there are important differences when it comes to the internet.
Weissmann said, “A store clerk glancing at an I.D., however, is very different from a website storing personal data or tracking users’ activities. As the Tea leak demonstrated, any age-verification system that stores user data comes with vulnerabilities and risks compromising users’ privacy.”
She added that these laws remove much of the anonymity people expect online. According to Weissmann, this could discourage some individuals from accessing certain online spaces. “In short, the new safety laws eliminate the relative anonymity that we have continued to expect online even as social media has collapsed the boundaries between our physical and digital lives. Some users will surely decide that it’s not worth sacrificing privacy for access to online material, which means that fewer people who may benefit from a putatively sensitive space, such as an online A.A. community, will ultimately access it,” she said.
Recent incidents such as the Tea leak have raised concerns about how age-verification systems can expose user data to potential breaches and compromise privacy.
