All users of social media may be subject to passport ID checks when the UK’s social media ban for under-16s comes into effect, according to an announcement by the UK’s online safety regulator. Commenting on the announcement, Big Brother Watch director Silkie Carlo said:
“This plan for a government ‘social media ban’ is a national ID system by the back door.
“Both the government and Ofcom have admitted that children will get around the ban, which means the real effect will be normalising adults and children alike to hand over their passports just to get online.
“Hundreds of thousands of people without ID, who tend to be poorer people, and many more who don’t want to risk handing their passports over to foreign tech companies will be locked out of huge parts of the internet.
“The plan will kill anonymity online, whilst the UK’s culture of speech policing is reaching a crisis point. The policy is painfully misguided, an Orwellian assault on free speech and privacy, and will make children no safer at all.
“The false illusion that children aren’t on social media will cause the companies to abandon all their child safety measures. The Government could be promoting meaningful safety measures and supporting parental controls that genuinely protect children – instead, they’re demanding government ID from the whole population just for uncensored internet access. It is authoritarian madness.”
Telegraph – Social media users may need ID to prove they are over 16, says Ofcom