The governments of the United States, the European Union, Britain and Australia are moving in coordination to abolish online anonymity and impose universal systems of digital identification. Under the pretext of “protecting children,” they are constructing a framework of surveillance and censorship directed at the political radicalization of workers and youth.
On December 11, 2025, the U.S. House Energy and Commerce subcommittee advanced the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) 2.0, legislation that would effectively require age verification for access to social media and online services. Additionally, Republican Senator Josh Hawley and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal introduced the Guidelines for User Age‑verification and Responsible Dialogue (GUARD) Act on October 28, 2025, a bill that would require AI chatbot providers to verify the ages of users and impose restrictions on minors’ access to AI systems.
Australia’s social media ban for minors under 16, passed in late 2024 under the Online Safety Amendment Act, officially took effect on December 10, 2025. Platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube, Reddit and Snapchat, face fines of up to $49.5 million for non-compliance. In practice, verifying that users are 16 or older requires platforms to demand identification or biometric data from all users, including adults. The timing of this measure, following mass opposition among youth and workers to the Gaza genocide, underscores its political character.
The European Union is negotiating the final terms of the so-called “Chat Control” law, which would force messaging platforms to verify users’ ages and expose private communications, undermining encryption and online anonymity under the guise of “protecting children.”
All such systems permanently tie individual’s real-world identities to their online activity, making proof of identity a constant requirement for taking part in social and political life.
The international coordination of these policies reflects a conscious political strategy. Since 2011, social media has facilitated the circulation of oppositional ideas and the organization of mass protests, from the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street to the 2024 demonstrations against the genocide in Gaza. Encrypted messaging apps have enabled workers to coordinate strikes outside the control of the trade union bureaucracies. The ruling class views these developments as threats to be neutralized.
The drive toward digital authoritarianism and online censorship is part of a broader assault on democratic rights. The same governments pushing universal digital ID are conducting mass deportations, criminalizing protests, expanding police powers, gutting press freedoms and waging wars of aggression abroad. The attacks on online anonymity by major imperialist powers are of a piece with the attack on the right to asylum, the right to strike and the right to oppose government policy without state surveillance.
KOSA, sponsored by Senators Marsha Blackburn (Republican-Tennessee) and Richard Blumenthal (Democrat-Connecticut), passed the Senate 91-3 on July 30, 2024, with the backing of then Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Whip John Thune, reflecting bipartisan support for a sweeping attack on online anonymity. The legislation was reintroduced on May 14, 2025, and the House subcommittee advanced it on December 11, 2025.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) unanimously approved amendments to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0) on January 16, 2025, expanding government oversight of children’s online activity under the guise of privacy protection. The rules took effect on June 23, 2025, with a compliance deadline of April 22, 2026. The FTC has scheduled a workshop on “age verification technologies” for January 28, 2026.
On October 28, 2025, fascist Republican Senator Josh Hawley introduced the GUARD Act (Guidelines for User Age‑verification and Responsible Dialogue), with bipartisan cosponsors, including Democratic Senators Richard Blumenthal, Chris Murphy, Mark Warner and Mark Kelly. The bill would force AI chatbots to verify users’ ages and disclose their non-human status, extending government surveillance into digital platforms under the guise of “protecting children.” The bill would force age verification for all AI chatbot users, prohibit minors from accessing “AI companions” and impose criminal penalties of up to 20 years imprisonment.
The Supreme Court’s June 2025 ruling in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton upheld a Texas law requiring age verification for websites with more than one-third sexually explicit content. Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority (joined by Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett), declared that the First Amendment does not grant adults a right to anonymous access that outweighs a state’s interest in protecting minors. Across the US, more than a dozen states have enacted age‑verification laws requiring proof of age to access online adult content or other such services, even as some of these statutes face legal challenges, and enforcement varies by jurisdiction.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed the App Store Accountability Act (SB 2420) on May 27, 2025, requiring age verification at app store account creation. A federal judge blocked the law in December 2025 as unconstitutionally vague. In Louisiana, a federal judge ruled on December 18, 2025, that SB 162, requiring age verification for social media users under 16, violates the First Amendment. Missouri’s age verification law took effect on November 30, 2025, with penalties of $10,000 per day for non-compliance.
The European Commission first proposed the Child Sexual Abuse Regulation (“Chat Control”) in May 2022. After the European Court of Human Rights ruled in defense of encrypted communications in early 2024, the EU Council suspended a planned vote. On November 26, 2025, EU ambassadors approved a revised proposal by a narrow margin, with Italy, Czech Republic and Poland voting against and the Netherlands abstaining. The framework includes mandatory age verification for messaging platforms and “voluntary” scanning of non-encrypted messages.
Meredith Whittaker, president of the Signal Foundation and its encrypted messaging app, stated: “If forced to choose between undermining encryption and data protection guarantees or leaving Europe, Signal would unfortunately make the decision to leave the market.” Trilogue negotiations between the Council and Parliament began December 9, 2025, with a final deal expected by June 2026.
In mid-December 2025, members of the UK House of Lords introduced amendments to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill requiring mandatory on-device surveillance software on smartphones and tablets, unremovable by users. Additional amendments would ban VPN access to users under 18.
On November 25, 2025, the Alaska Department of Administration issued a request for information on integrating “agentic AI” into the state’s myAlaska mobile application. The system would enable AI agents to complete transactions on behalf of users with biometric authentication via facial recognition or fingerprints, extending to 300 digital services and a digital wallet for driver’s licenses, permits and certifications.
In Brazil, the government has deployed the Aletheia AI system, which continuously scans social media, blogs and news sites for statements classified as “disinformation” or hate speech, identifying individuals for prosecution. Google’s Play Age Signals API, published in November 2025, provides age-related signals to Android applications, effectively classifying users into various age ranges.
On December 10, 2025, the Trump administration announced proposed rules requiring applicants from 42 visa-waiver countries to submit five years of social media history, email addresses used in the past 10 years, telephone numbers, facial data, fingerprints, DNA samples and iris images through the ESTA Mobile application. A separate Final Rule, effective December 26, 2025, expands biometric collection from virtually all non-US citizens at entry and exit.
The consensus behind these measures—from the 91-3 Senate vote for KOSA to the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling upholding age verification—demonstrates that both parties of the American ruling class support the abolition of online anonymity. Australia passed its social media ban in November 2024, weeks after mass protests against Israeli genocide in Gaza swept university campuses.
The claim that these measures protect children is a fraud. The same governments imposing age verification are arming Israel’s slaughter of children in Gaza, cutting funding for schools and healthcare and forcing youth into military service for imperialist wars. The target is political opposition. Brazil’s Aletheia system, scanning social media for prosecutable speech, shows the trajectory: from “protecting children” to criminalizing dissent.
The working class cannot defend democratic rights through appeals to the courts or capitalist politicians. US federal judges have blocked some state laws on First Amendment grounds, but the Supreme Court has ruled that age verification is constitutional. The EU has overridden objections from various civil liberties organizations. More fundamentally, the defense of privacy requires a political struggle against the capitalist system.
The same ruling class constructing universal digital identification is waging war abroad—invading Venezuela, arming genocide in Gaza, escalating toward conflict with Russia and China—and building a police state at home through mass deportations, attacks on the press and the gutting of constitutional protections. These are two fronts of the same war against the working class. Only the independent political mobilization of workers, aimed at the expropriation of the technology monopolies and the socialist reorganization of society, can halt the descent into digital authoritarianism.