Our mission is to protect children and defend parental rights by equipping families and citizens with the tools to keep kids safe online. We oppose government surveillance disguised as child safety legislation and seek to build an informed, independent, parent-led coalition to #ProtectKidsOnline.
Understanding age verification policies.
Why Age‑Verification Mandates Lead to Digital ID Systems, Data Risks, and Expanded Government Power.
Across the country, lawmakers are advancing age‑verification (AV) bills with the stated goal of protecting children online. These proposals are often framed as simple, common‑sense measures: keep minors away from explicit content, empower parents, and hold platforms accountable. On the surface, it sounds straightforward. But the reality is far more complex. To verify someone’s age online, a system must first verify who that person is. That means collecting, scanning, or matching identity‑linked information, whether through a driver’s license, a selfie, a phone number, a credit card, or a biometric scan. In practice, age verification is not a digital “lock on the liquor cabinet.” It is the creation of an identity checkpoint for everyday internet use.
What’s emerging is not just a child‑safety tool, but the early architecture of a Digital ID system in the United States. Major think tanks, advocacy groups, and technology vendors now openly describe AV as a gateway to device‑level identity signals, interoperable verification across apps and browsers, and government‑mandated standards for how platforms confirm who is an adult and who is a minor. For the average person, this means that accessing websites, apps, or online services could increasingly require proving your identity to a third‑party verifier or to your device itself. The debate may be framed around protecting children, but the long‑term consequence is the normalization of identity‑gated access to the internet, an expansion of data collection, surveillance potential, and government authority that reaches far beyond the issue of online safety.
Not every child online safety bill is the same—but many follow the same legislative templates. These are the most common categories of bills moving through state legislatures today. Explore each issue to understand how these policies work, what they require, and the tradeoffs they create for families, privacy, and the future of the internet.
AI companions are marketed to children with no safety standards. Social media platforms are designed for engagement over well-being. And the proposed legislative "solutions" often make the surveillance problem worse, not better.
Social media bans promise to protect children by restricting access based on age. In practice, they rely on age verification, expand data collection, and shift responsibility away from parents without addressing the underlying harms online.
Bills requiring identity verification don't just affect minors, they surveil every American. The data infrastructure these bills create serves platforms and government agencies far more than it serves families.
Age verification is just the beginning. The same infrastructure being built to verify who can download an app is the foundation for a permanent government identity layer across every digital platform. Once it exists, it will be used...by government agencies, law enforcement, and the platforms themselves. A Digital ID mandate by any other name is still a Digital ID mandate.
In K–12 classrooms, school-issued devices are collecting behavioral data on children with no meaningful parental consent or oversight. Most parents have no idea what their child's school is sharing or with whom.