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Stop Killing The Internet: No Digital ID & No Age Verification | European Citizens' Initiative
(citizens-initiative.europa.eu)
this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2026
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Age verification must be scrapped completely. Period.
There's no such thing as anonymous age verification.
The very word "pseudoanonymous" is laughable.
And any non-anonymous age verification is basicaly an authoritarian control feature.
Zero-knowledge proofs exist, where a person can prove one fact without revealing other facts about themselves. If there were a will to do it, governments could figure out a way for people to prove their age to a website without revealing their identity. The problem is that it was never supposed to be about proving your age, because what governments and corporations actually want is your identity for surveillance purposes. Proof of age and protection of children was just the cover story they used to promote the destruction of online anonymity. The goal is surveillance and control, not protection of children.
The EU age verification app is designed to not reveal any information other than the userโs age being over 18. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/faqs/eu-age-verification-solution
And is there any source code that can inequivocally demonstrate that? No. Then the only rational thing is to believe that they're just lying and selling snake oil as they always do.
Ok, cool. Whatโs wrong with the source code?
That it doesn't exists
The apps have not been released, but even so you can see the source code for each prototype on their GitHub. Please try to find out about stuff before you make claims. All the source code that exists is available for your perusal. https://ageverification.dev/Setup
Switzerland has implemented laws and a digital system that allows you to verify your age only using a new eID, while promising that it'll be untraceable that your ID was used to make this check and not giving out more info than "yes, this person is 18+". The eID is meant to be optional, but we know how these things usually go.
Whether you trust the promises to be actually implemented correctly and without errors is a different matter. I think it was supposed to be released as open source, but you can't confirm any specific build is actually running on the servers.
So I'd say it's possible and - compared to current "scan your ID" approaches - more privacy protecting. Its implementation is a different matter.
https://www.admin.ch/en/e-id-act
some future headline
Never forget that the main age verification method baked into these laws was card transactions. The ID and face scanning technology didn't really exist when the laws were written, so it describes them more generally, but card transactions were the established method of verifying age. The new technology came in as a cheaper option for service providers.
MasterCard and VISA were the primary promoters of these laws. Even with new technology taking some of the share, the laws would still cause an increase in card verifications at a time when many businesses try to minimise the card verifications they do to limit their transaction fees (ie pay MC and VISA less).
I agree completely, people are manipulated into believing this sort of thing is remotely OK - but its fundamentaly not. Not only does this infringe on peoples privacy but also human and youth rights which are clearly dismissed. The targeted minority is used like tools, sacrificing their rights for mischievous purposes.
If you are undocumented? Then you can't identify yourself and thus can't age verify either. Plenty of homeless people or people with incredible life issues are not and will never be able to complete a government-backed age verification scheme.
You can't even get a SIM card without ID here. It is mandatory to have one or you can and will be fined.
Seriously, those without ID have much more pressing problems than age verification. Proving citizenship for one.
If you don't think having a SIM card is a "pressing problem" then you don't have enough contact with homeless people. Staying in contact with those who care is vital for basic things such as:
You have no idea how hard life on the street is. Plenty of folks there just don't have a phone because it gets stolen, lost, can't charge it, falls in the water, breaks or gets thrown to bits because you got wronged again and can't take it anymore. Maybe you'll sell it for some cash so you can buy food or get some water for a week?
It all starts with a damn SIM card.
Imagine you can't do 2FA for your government ID. How can you get a phoen? How are you going to apply to social subsidized housing? How are help providers able to help you if you can't authenticate to government websites? Social subsidized housing all runs on government eID stuff. Maybe you need to pay 800 euros worth of healthcare bills but don't know what it's for and the only way to request it in a timely manner is via authenticating yourself to your insurance company over the internet! Now you can't!
Basic societal technology needs to work for everyone.
It's plain illegal discrimination on the government's part.
Having a SIM card is one of these more pressing problems! Government age verification is very much not one of these when you can't even access the government sites.
No ID = No SIM = No bank account = No insurance = No (legal) job = No housing
All of those require an ID already. Same with your examples - applying for social housing is dependant on you proving your identity via an ID.
This petition isn't about eIDs though, it's about the requirement to use eIDs to access the internet. The eIDs already exist in every single EU member state in case you don't know.