Why Cybersecurity Professionals Oppose Age Verification Mandates

For whatever reason, people often assume that because I'm a cybersecurity professional, I automatically support anything with an idea of proposed "security." When I mention things I'm opposed to that seem "security related," people are often shocked.

For example, I am highly opposed to the introduced Age Verification Mandates. I can almost entirely guarantee you: most security professionals oppose this. It is our worst nightmare. Our entire job is to help people protect their identity online—and these bills would hard-load it onto a device that's always connected to the internet. We never recommend this under any circumstance. Absolutely not.

It also won't stop child predators, I am sorry to say. No broad solution like this exists for that. Many digital mandates have attempted to protect children, and none of them have done much. What these bills will do is erode your right to privacy, aid government surveillance, and degrade digital sovereignty for all.

I wish I could believe it's about protecting children. But when you have one predatory behavior (surveillance) claiming to protect against another predatory behavior, you can almost guarantee the purpose you're supporting is trading one predator for another.

And let me be clear about who the other predators are…