Image via WallpaperAccess
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In 2021, Roblox stated “The Age Verification service is gradually rolling out to users starting today, September 21, 2021, and over the course of a few weeks. It will be available globally in over 180 countries on both mobile and desktop for anyone 13 years of age or older with a government-issued ID or passport.”
Five years later, Roblox faces 115 lawsuits for Child exploitation and failure to protect minors. With a pattern of various minors being exposed to adult content, pedophiles, instances of exploitation and instances of rape. With the company having an insufficient number of moderators for a company of its size.
Back when Roblox first started implementing Age Verification there was talk of lack of anonymity which would specifically damage privacy, free expression, and groups that benefit from anonymity such as whistleblowers, ethical hackers, and open source users.
With age verification originally being something was associated with Authoratrain government which China was compared to that summer in 2021 as a crack down on “stan” culture and talent idol worship under the guise of it “poisoning the minds of the country’s youth” which shows both a lack of individual choice and how such policies can be weaponized by the state to serve its own interests. Although the argument has been increasingly accepted as many countries are starting to implement similar restrictions.
With countries such as the U.K implementing the online safety act, Australia banning social media to people under the age of 16, France is trying to pass a similar law to Australia, in Brazil a law requiring age verification for “questionable content” is set to take effect this month, along with others. Under the guise of protecting kids from harmful content and manipulation.
There were also reports that the average age for when people discover pornography was 12 according to a survey of 1,300 teens (13-17). According to the reports 15% of respondents view pornography on purpose and 29% discovering it accidentally and 29% viewing it accidentally and on purpose. About 45% believe it gives useful information on intercourse but under quarter believes it portrays intercourse realistically. With 67% feeling “ok” with the amount of pornography they consume. 71% said they viewed pornoraphy in the past week. 51% said they found pornography through internet exploration, 29% from friends and classmates, 25% through accidently clicking on a link (each percentage is out of all teen respondents to the survey). With attendants of private/religious schools showing a higher percentage watching pornography during the school day. Along with higher viewership among those of LGBTQ background.
Currently as of this writing 25 U.S states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming have implemented various Age Verification laws ranging in scope and scale to some requiring for “questionable content” while others are require operating system level age checks before one can begin using their devices. The states of Colorado and California have passed versions of bills requiring checks at the operating system level with Colorado’s to take effect in 2028 while California’s is expected to take effect later this year. There is currently a similar bill being debated in New York.
It is also important to note the aftermath of implementing such policies such as in Florida. For example, VPN searches doubled and have risen substantially such as adult websites have started requiring age verification and started pulling service from states that require it. Which had led some states to start considering bans on VPNs. Which has been widely criticized as being widely unenforceable and would hurt “businesses, students, journalists, abuse survivors, regular people who just want privacy.” With the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) stating that “harm to minors” is also vague such as in A.B. 105 in Wisconsin includes LGBTQ topics, reproductive healthcare, and sexual education resources which would harm marginalized groups. Which shows how the idea of protecting minors can easily become politicized from either end of the political spectrum.
But this has also led to concerns such as those stated by Alyo, the parent company of Pornhub statin:
“Unfortunately, the way many jurisdictions worldwide, including Florida, have chosen to implement age verification is ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous. Any regulations that require hundreds of thousands of adult sites to collect significant amounts of highly sensitive personal information is putting user safety in jeopardy. Moreover, as experience has demonstrated, unless properly enforced, users will simply access non-compliant sites or find other methods of evading these laws.”
This is not speculation. We have seen how this scenario plays out in the United States. In Louisiana last year, Pornhub was one of the few sites to comply with the new law. Since then, our traffic in Louisiana dropped approximately 80 percent. These people did not stop looking for porn. They just migrated to darker corners of the internet that don’t ask users to verify age, that don’t follow the law, that don’t take user safety seriously, and that often don’t even moderate content. In practice, the laws have just made the internet more dangerous for adults and children.”
Linux Mascot Tux via Larry Ewing
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There also has been opposition for age verification from various free and open source software (FOSS). Specifically from users of Linux an open source operating system have been critical of age verification to user operating systems calling such move “orwellian.” They argue that user verification to use devices would set a precedent and limit “young, intellectually gifted, and curious” people who want to experiment with technology without wanting to attempt to access malicious or inappropriate content. Limiting technological development and freedom.
This issue is particularly debated because Representative John James and Senator Mike Lee introduced the App Store Accountability Act (ASAA) in the House and Senate. Which would mandate age verification across the United States at the operating system level. There have been debates of the legality of such an act’s constitutionality. So far the most prominent age verification case was Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton (2026) where the Supreme Court ruled that age verification was justifiable to protect minors from “sexually explicit content” rebuking first amendment and fourteenth amendment protections but the fourth amendment was not mentioned. But there have been many concerns on the consequences if such an act was to pass as significant privacy protections would be taken away.
It is also important to look at those who are pushing the ASAA with the TOBOTE Project finding Meta has spent nearly one hundred million dollars on shaping age verification across multiple states. With a quarter being funded to lobbyists and the rest being spent in superpacs with an unknown amount being spent according to Bloomberg on a child advocacy group called Digital Childhood Alliance (DCA) with ties to the heritage foundation. Adam Eichberg, Meta’s Colorado’s lobbyist, is also on the board for Arabella network. While the exact extent to Meta’s lobby efforts effectiveness is unknown it is likely that such extensive lobbying efforts will likely influence the passage of the final bill. Also twenty five million alone was spent in California with Governor Gavin Newsom announcing a similar bill to the ASAA but for the state level. The investigation also found substantial lobbying efforts in the countries in the EU, the U.K and Brazil.
This push by Meta comes at a time when they are under investigation in Sweden and Britain along with other European countries for their Meta Ray Band Glasses where despite promises of privacy the data being gathered was used by a subcontractor called Sama in Kenya to use video collected to train AI the collection was under terms of service. The data collected included private information and moments such as people changing, bank information, and intercourse with partners. This shows a pattern of lack of privacy for individuals yet they are shaping the ASAA meaning similar privacies could also be limited with age verification.
This all comes to a head when one examines the companies which are expected to be the ones responsible for age verification. One such company is Persona, one of the leaders in identity verification used by various companies such as OpenAI, Lyft, Reddit, and many more. But this has not been without controversy.
Profile pictures of the three programmers: Celeste via vmfunc (left), MLD via MDLcsgo (middle), Dzirurwa via Dziurwa14 (right)
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Last month three bloggers and programmers vmfunc, MDL, Dziurwa analyzed open source code from Persona’s database they found when trying to “experiment” (to try and find a way to breach it) within the age verification software where they found:
“53 megabytes of unprotected source maps on a FedRAMP government endpoint, exposing the entire codebase of a platform that files Suspicious Activity Reports with FinCEN, compares your selfie to watchlist photos using facial recognition, screens you against 14 categories of adverse media from terrorism to espionage, and tags reports with codenames from active intelligence programs.”
This shows that Persona is also analyzing way more data than simply age but also cross referencing with government databases and intelligence programs of interest. This data was all publicly available and unprotected according to the programmers. The code verification program performs 269 individual verification checks across 14 check types, including “SelfieSuspiciousEntityDetection.” But does not specify what constitutes a suspicious entity. Revealing that there are many unknowns still about the extent to which age verification software is being used and to what extent that data is used for what the public is being told. Persona is also partially funded by Peter Thiel of Palantir, a company known for using user data for metric analysis.
Discord cut ties with 5CA after a report came out that nearly seventy thousand government IDs were exposed in a cyberattack. Then cut ties with Persona after a report by the programmers referencing potentially politicized lists and facing public backlash.
After the initial report by the bloggers, Persona released a statement acknowledging the incident and the CEO Rick Song email correspondence with vmfunc. Persona’s statement focused more on the information leak instead of the actual content of the data only referencing onyx and denying it has anything to do with Onyx AI and its ties to ICE. In the email correspondence it is important to note that most claims made by Rick Song are unverifiable. But it is notable in questions that were not answered in correspondence including what defines suspicious activity, what federal agencies that have contracted Persona, was a Biometrics Information Privacy Act (BIPA) check passed, were users informed of public figure facial matching, while also being unclear on what happens to data stored on persona servers other than restating current storage policies.
BIPA is a law in the state of Illinois which requires companies to give written verification of data collection and have consumers given written confirmation for the storage and collection of such electronically collected data. It also ruled that companies can’t send data to third parties without written consent.
Taken together there appears to be significant implications and consequences for implementing age verification beyond simply protecting kids if such restrictions are implementable and people are unable to avoid them given the prevalence of VPNs making this seem unlikely. Despite numerous controversies from those who are tasked with passing the bills being influenced by those who stand to benefit from less privacy to those already tasked with age verification already being exposed as ineffective or doing significantly more than age verification. There is an immense amount of money being spent and that could be made to push for age verification consequences and benefits have been unclear but one thing is for sure it runs much deeper than protecting the kids.
Now take one of George Orwell’s famous quotes “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” Now let’s add one more “child verification is protecting the kids.”
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This article was edited by Abigail D’Angelo.
Catherine Topps 
Sarah Olivia Sullivan 
Sahir Sadat