This is part one of a two-part series in which we explore approaches to protecting children online while safeguarding privacy, security and the open web. Part one covers our concerns regarding age gates, and alternative policy proposals that address the root causes of online harms.
Young people today have unprecedented opportunities to learn, connect, and explore — not just the web and the world, but also themselves. With the increased ubiquity of digital technologies and devices, worries around the , the harms experienced by young people online and the challenges , to understand the real-world effects of digital technologies.
Faced with this complexity, and mounting public pressure, policymakers around the world are urgently seeking ways to improve child safety online. Driven by a sense of time running out and promises of new , to proposals to restrict young people’s access to certain technologies or platforms by introducing age assurance mandates.
Privacy and user empowerment have always formed a core part of Mozilla’s mission. As . Technological approaches must be part of wider efforts to address the root causes of online harms. However, the deployment of age assurance technologies will not solve the complex challenge of preparing young people to navigate an increasingly online world and ensure their wellbeing. That will require more holistic approaches: offering education and support to navigate the web safely, addressing harmful business practices and acknowledging the offline factors shaping children’s lives including social inequality, poverty or disparate access to (mental) health care services.
Ineffective age-gating mandates and the dangerous shift toward VPN restrictions
As jurisdictions around the world gain experience with government-mandated age gates for certain services, evidence is mounting that age restrictions are not an effective policy tool. Avoiding age gates is widespread and trivially easy: In Australia, where minors under 16 year of age have been banned from certain social media platforms since December 2025, the government’s Compliance Update on the implementation of the UK’s Online Safety Act found that a third of children have bypassed age gates with fairly trivial steps like faking their birthdate, borrowing someone else’s login credentials, or even drawing on facial hair, and that a quarter of parents have helped their children to bypass age assurance systems. In the US, shows that many young people bypass age barriers by using other people’s devices and accounts or tricking age estimation tools by making themselves look older, virtual private networks (VPNs) are as primarily a “loophole” to age gates. VPNs create encrypted “tunnels” between a user’s device and the internet, protecting all internet traffic from that device and concealing users’ IP addresses. VPNs are an essential privacy and security resource for millions of users worldwide, holds websites hosting age-restricted content liable for verifying the age of anyone physically located in Utah, including individuals using VPNs or proxies. While the law does not ban VPNs outright, it forces websites to either block known VPN IP addresses or verify the age of every visitor globally. In the UK, policymakers for VPNs extensively, but the regulatory authority to order technical countermeasures against circumvention tools such as VPNs. These developments suggest a worrying trend: well-meaning but ineffective attempts to protect children risk undermining the fundamental rights to privacy, security, and free expression of all users, as well as the health and openness of the web itself.
We are convinced, however, that there are rights-respecting alternatives policymakers can pursue to empower young people online and improve their safety and well-being.
Moving beyond access bans
We strongly believe that online safety frameworks should be grounded in and and the appeared first on Open Policy & Advocacy.
SOCIAL SHARE CARD GENERATOR