Earlier this month, the European Union introduced an online age verification app as a way to protect underage internet users. In the U.S., a new federal law could follow this European blueprint. 

But these databases designed to enhance online security may inadvertently harm the public, leading us into a surveillance crisis, warns Proton's CEO.

Andy Yen, the founder and CEO of security software Proton, argues that if these "ID checkpoints" become commonplace, online anonymity will face serious challenges. Though the desire to protect children means well, lawmakers' approach to age verification could create unprecedented data collection and countless opportunities to exploit all users.

"Age verification as is currently being proposed in country after country would mean the death of anonymity online," Yen said, according to TechRadar. "We simply can't afford to get this wrong."

Privacy advocates have raised concerns about the risks of requiring users to provide passports, government IDs, or biometric data before accessing the internet, and Yen joins a growing group of experts calling for a halt to mandatory age verification.

Accumulating sensitive identity documents creates a considerable target for cybercriminals. "The more sensitive data you stockpile in privately held databases, the bigger a target it becomes for criminals," Yen wrote.

If a social platform or dating app collects sensitive information without expertise, their security measures are bound to fail. Even some third-party verification services fail to ensure adequate data security.

Yen lists just a few examples of the countless data breaches putting individuals' personal information at risk.

The extramarital affairs platform Ashley Madison made headlines in 2015 after a data breach publicly released more than 60 gigabytes of data, including user details

Last October, one of Discord's third-party customer service vendors was hacked, leaking 70,000 government IDs around the world. 

And with the EU's age verification app, security consultant Paul Moore claimed it took only two minutes to hack into the app.

Yen cautions that granting Big Tech the authority to monitor and restrict access based on age presents significant risks for adults, too. "Once you're using these collected IDs to block access based on age, it's a short leap to blocking access based on nationality or other factors as well," he wrote.

Proton advocates that technology firms should concentrate their efforts on enhancing parental controls, putting the responsibility on parents instead of Big Tech.

According to TechRadar, if an age verification process is unavoidable, Yen notes that the checks should be done on the user's device, and the facial scans should be immediately discarded.  

Yen emphasizes that the resulting verification must be "fully anonymized, free from personal information, and transmitted securely through end-to-end encryption." Additionally, the foundational code should be open-source.

Ultimately, Proton maintains that the safest data is the data that is never collected. "The only way to ensure that age-verification data won't be compromised, shared, or misused is to not gather it at all," Yen states.

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