UK officials are now openly consulting on age-restricting children's VPN use, even while government text says lawful adult VPN use should not be restricted and VPNs remain legal. The NCSC also describes VPNs as a normal secure infrastructure for organisations. And the poll being pushed around asked about banning VPNs for under-18s, not everyone, with 25% saying "don't know".

Watch: youtu.be/GCfc61j6AUQ

This is how mission creep happens: more ID checks, more third-party data collection, less privacy.

Are we protecting children, or teaching people to treat privacy tools as suspicious?

#VPN #Privacy #OnlineSafetyAct #DigitalRights #UK

In the light of today's confirmation decisions from Ofcom, I have updated my blogpost about what constitutes a "significant" number of users for the purposes of Part 3 #OnlineSafetyAct

Nothing ground-breaking in there, tbh.

But I do have concerns around some of the "target market" analysis, in terms of pornography services.

https://decoded.legal/blog/2026/03/what-number-of-uk-users-constitutes-a-significant-number-for-the-purposes-of-the-online-safety-act-2023/

Ofcom has published new information, including confirmation decisions, about enforcement action under the #OnlineSafetyAct in respect of pornography.

I have yet to read it in detail, but I will try to do so later:

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/protecting-children/enforcement-programme-to-protect-children-from-encountering-pornographic-content-through-the-use-of-age-assurance

California's AB 1043 pushes OS-level age signals. The UK Online Safety Act pushes highly effective age checks. Different models, same core question: can child safety be improved without expanding surveillance?

Read: https://beitmenotyou.online/online-age-verification-explained-californias-os-level-age-signals-the-uk-online-safety-act-and-the-privacy-trade-off

Where do you draw the line between safety and privacy?

#Privacy #AgeVerification #DigitalRights #OnlineSafetyAct

RE: https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/116313176350075873

One of the aspects of #ageverification and #OnlineSafetyAct that few talk about:

Imagine your kid turns 18 and on that very same day, on a still rather vulnerable age, they are bombarded with ads about performing sex work, joining the army, buying guns, alcohol, and whatever addictive tobacco alternative is trending this year.

All thanks to pushing for age and digital IDs being such an available piece of information in the digital landscape.

The Timeless Fear of Corrupting the Youth | WSJ

Excellent piece:

The lesson from these examples isn’t that protecting children online is misguided or an unworthy goal. It is that the means proposed to achieve this end pose significant risks to human rights, and that the tools created for that purpose can easily become instruments of broader control over speech once governments acquire them.

https://www.wsj.com/politics/social-media-freedom-speech-meta-youtube-ruling-32aaee3b archived at: https://archive.ph/PMCjL