this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2026
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Online age-verification tools spread across U.S. for child safety, but adults are being surveilled (www.cnbc.com)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by throws_lemy@lemmy.nz to c/technology@lemmy.world
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New U.S laws designed to protect minors are pulling millions of adult Americans into mandatory age-verification gates to access online content, leading to backlash from users and criticism from privacy advocates that a free and open internet is at stake. Roughly half of U.S. states have enacted or are advancing laws requiring platforms — including adult content sites, online gaming services, and social media apps — to block underage users, forcing companies to screen everyone who approaches these digital gates.

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[–] crusa187@lemmy.ml 8 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Terrifying once you realize what they really mean by “think of the children”

[–] eli@lemmy.world 11 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

For real. What is stopping a program from querying if an account is an adult or child, and then seeing if there's an email or username or whatever tied to that account age?

So now we have a database of children with their names and emails? Addresses? Or if a system gets hacked and that information is sold to bad actors?

What is stopping a pedophile from making a "child" account and then being lumped in with a group of other children?

These are things you think about in the first 10 minutes of questioning whether something like this is viable and how it can be exploited.

[–] SabinStargem@lemmy.today 4 points 20 hours ago

I think that ICE will be sent information about children, and then they will ship the good looking kids to the highest bidder.