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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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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.