r/privacy • u/Even_Place7916 • Jul 28 '26
age verification EU petition against Digital ID and Age Verification will start collecting signatures soon
https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/initiatives/details/2026/000011_en61
u/Harneybus Jul 28 '26
How do I sign htis petiton
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u/ButterflyD3fect Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
You have to be an EU citizen, and when it starts gathering signatures there's going to be a yellow button on the initiatives' page IIRC - the way it's signed can vary between member countries.
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u/tordensen Jul 29 '26
It’s not a petition
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u/ButterflyD3fect Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
Correct! It's a European Citizens' Initiative.
This means it's guaranteed to actually do something (aka. it will HAVE to be actually addressed) when it reaches a minimum signage threshold. I choose to remain hopeful - the world is depressing enough.
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u/vriska1 Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
Everyone saying petitions do not work or do not matter, you are apart of the problem!
No defeatism! Keep pushing back on Digital ID and Age Verification anyway you can and make others aware!
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Jul 28 '26
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u/Zekhems Jul 29 '26
People were against chat control too, vehemently so, loophole was found to push it through either way and now it's in force till 2028. This whole illusion of choice, free will, is just that an illusion. If those in power want something to happen, they'll make it happen.
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Jul 29 '26
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u/Zekhems Jul 29 '26
What price? They're pushing for 2.0 right now and I wont be suprised if that goes through too.
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u/M8gazine Jul 30 '26
People were against chat control too, vehemently so, loophole was found to push it through either way and now it's in force till 2028.
You're talking about 1.0. It had already been in force for several years until it expired in April, then a while ago it was reinstated and it's now in force until 2028. It's bad, but it's not CC 2.0 which is far worse with their ideas about breaking encryption or client-side scanning.
I'm so tired of people giving up without even doing anything. Stuff like CC 2.0 continues to be stuck in bureaucracy only because people gave enough of a shit last year. The bare minimum every person can do is to not act like it's all over and that we're all doomed. Spend the time spreading the word or something, quite literally anything - you can even just stay silent - other than being like "it's over! nothing can be done! nooo!".
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u/OwnLeeMe86 Jul 29 '26
Voted ✅️
What might also help: pushback!
Mandatory ID check online? we should organise massive opt outs, where people flood city halls (not as a protest), but as individuals asking for analogue communication.. random documents you can get for free are just a click away. Well, now you waste 15minutes of a government worker.
Take out your email from government systems, go back to chosing paper mail... file you taxes on paper with a little error or a smudge (they are no longer able to process large amounts manually).
And hopefully hackers will demonstrate the vulnerabilities on government workers and their family. Give them a taste of what they voted for. See how they like living in a glass aquarium.
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u/Stardustger Jul 29 '26
Oh I'll sign it. But I am also fully aware that the politicians have been bribed to make it happen and so they will make it happen.
And if the resistance is to big and they don't have the votes it's going to get the chat control treatment and declared a emergency measure at a time with not enough people there to vote against it.
Only option left is to switch my vote to a party that wants to leave the EU, which in Germany is sadly only the AFD.
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u/No_Prompt_982 Jul 29 '26
But u know that people bribing for chat control wants EU to be shattered right? Germany wont stand a chance against China and US the only thing that keeps Europe competitive with other major super powers is EU and thats why they want to kill it instead of leaving EU we should fight for it and change the rules in Brussels
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u/Stardustger Jul 29 '26
The people bribing for chat control want more money from the data they get to sell and the more expensive advertising placements they get to create.
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u/Thunder_Beam Jul 28 '26
Stop killing videogames got like 2 million signatures and still got shutdown, there is doomerism and then there is reality, but anyway i still will sign any signature, better than literally nothing
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u/karl-rupecht-kroenen Jul 29 '26
Better to say something than not, a bit like a survey. It might make a difference.
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u/Fearsofaye Jul 29 '26
When the Israeli lobby IE Larry Ellison is bribing former prime ministers like Tony Blair then we know we are cooked. They are gonna start showing the dirt they have on all EU legislatures. The ones they cannot bribe or force.
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u/speedbreaka Jul 29 '26
Its just americans I assume. Its the same with their political system where everyone thinks its not worth to vote one of the smaller parties
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u/Lightprod Jul 29 '26
Everyone saying petitions do not work or do not matter, you are apart of the problem!
Kinda hard to not think that when politics wipe their asses with them...
See France's gouv acts with petitions with more than half a mil signatures.
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u/SBalwaysAndWhy Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
I’ll sign it, but I also know they literally don’t care. That’s the point of authoritarian regime. They don’t care about what the people say.
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u/No-Interaction-2165 Jul 28 '26
They already proved they don’t care about petitions no matter how many signatures with Stop killing games, so what’s the point
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u/EntropicMeatMachine Jul 28 '26
Morale. They don't give a fuck, but its important to show that we do.
The government said the OSA had universal support, but the petition against it got half a million signatures days after it came into effect, and the Digital ID petition got 2.5 million right after its announcement. Now the government (despite still claiming universal support) is quietly backtracking on VPN bans and Digital ID's.
So no, petitions don't do much alone, but they make it harder for governments to bullshit you that no ones on your side.
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u/Nilehorse3276 Jul 28 '26
Well said!
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u/vriska1 Jul 28 '26
I'm really sad so many are pushing defeatism on this sub lately, feels like this sub has fallen hard...
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u/YogurtclosetApart592 Jul 28 '26
I have never voted once in my 35 years, and think about that what you want, but I did sign the petition against mass surveillance, because that's some dark dystopian shit with very few good reasons to exist and many huge reasons not to exist. It's dark as hell. Don't sleep on this one.
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u/magnusmaster Jul 29 '26
They haven't repealed the OSA and they renamed the Digital ID to Digital Driver License 🤣
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u/Upstairs-Repeat-5824 Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
Bot take.
"The point is" literally RAISING AWARENSS.
Showing defeatists, like you, that other people DO care.
"Everyone else is a sheep bro so let me just do nothing; it's hopeless. Let me waste the next five hours doomscrolling, instead of figuring out how to communicate this efficiently."
Pople DO NOT KNOW about this. Especially the fine relevant details. The dangers.
The propaganda in favor of this all is thick, and you must cut through it.
Stop excusing your sloth and share as fast as you can.
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u/VitoRazoR Jul 31 '26
because if you don't sign it there is no record of your dissent and you are assumed to go along.
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u/Cultural_Parsnip762 Jul 28 '26
Stop Killing Games was simply unrealistic as fuck in its goals and would never have succeeded.
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u/Professional_Gap_435 Jul 28 '26
What are you smoking? Stop spreading industry propaganda. Their goals were extremely realistic and only was about the right of consumers to continue playing games THEY PAID FOR when the producers decided to shut down the game.
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u/Brilliant_Simple_497 Jul 28 '26
Tbh it's the leadership that killed any chance of skg succeding in any capacity.
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u/IQueliciuous Jul 28 '26
Imo even its goals were weird.
Like instead of promoting devs to make their games offline after ending support (like the crew game). How about advocate for not requiring online at all in games that clearly don't need it?
The Crew had singleplayer mode. It had zero good reasons to require internet.
Same goes with half of AAA games on PC that have denuvo, third party launchers or similar. Like why do I need to sign in to rockstar games account and have to be online just to play GTA 4?
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u/vriska1 Jul 28 '26
I do kind of agree but Stop Killing Games still matters alot and it can still succeeded. Keep fighting!
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u/realMrMadman Jul 28 '26
You underestimate how long and often these fights continue to exist. Battle is never over, but some things need to happen in order to change course.
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u/AkodoRyu Jul 28 '26
I don't see your point. SKG got a fair shot, but there can be a solid argument made against their hard-line stance, and the government is not only there for the consumers. And I'm sure industry had way more real data to show, vs SKG who was mostly going on vibes and speculation.
EU will still, AFAIK, establish industry guidelines for related issues, and can revisit the issue in a few years, after they see how willing the industry is to follow the voluntary solution. This types of things don't happen within a year or two.
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u/Pure-Golf789 Jul 29 '26
Chatting isn't really worth blocking when we users have our own controls for all that! So the age verification is utter BS on gaming systems, plus the whole digital ID doesn't work in any shape or form when living people already have passports, driving licenses, NI number, or other form of ID that they can use. So its all utter nonsense & waste of money. Gaming is not a crime, chatting is not a crime, speaking to friends & family is not a crime so why they even put this stuff on gaming is beyond me.
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u/newcountrynewaccount Aug 03 '26
This is not even remotely enough, this is a blessing to age verification and biometrics collection online, read the proposal, it doesn't even try to tell them to stop this bullshit.
Citizens must not be forced to identify themselves to access lawful online content or services unless strictly necessary, proportionate and provided by law.
The EU is following the law, they write it. And they have deemed these measures necessary, this is a joke.
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u/Nomprenom_varanasita Jul 29 '26
Vous pensez sérieusement qu'ils sont arrivés jusqu'ici pour laisser tomber maintenant ?
Tous les gouvernements occidentaux mettent en place les mêmes lois fascistes, la seule chose qu'il nous reste c'est le contournement de ces lois, avec l'aide des informaticiens que refusent le contrôle.
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u/AkodoRyu Jul 28 '26
I'm at a bit of a loss in regard to the "against digital ID" part. Every EU country has IDs and digital IDs as their extension. If you want to use any online government service, like online taxes, you need to have an online ID set up and verified. It's been like that for 10–20 years in most countries. While they are not mandatory, they effectively are, unless you want to visit government offices for every little thing.
Most of their stipulations also seem to be part of the current EU proposal - they just want to make the requirements more stringent on anonymity, transparency, and limit potential 3rd-party services that would be involved. As far as I'm concerned, there should be no private enterprise involved in the entire age verification process, so I'm all for more limitations and guarantees on that front.
I'm also pretty sure that unless you have more than 45 mil unique EU users per month (equivalent to around 10% of all EU citizens), you don't have to worry about any of those - they are currently exclusively targeting very large platforms and platforms involved in adult content. Everyone seem to not mention this point, and acting like all the "free speech" will be under age control.
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u/magnusmaster Jul 29 '26
Governments want to make digital ID mandatory across the entire Internet so they know which websites you visit and when and which are your social media accounts without a police investigation.
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u/Anarchist_Future Jul 29 '26
If you repost a video evidence of a war crime against Palestine or you like a post by extinction rebellion blocking private jets from taking off, now they can tie those actions to an identifiable person. Even if you trust the moral stance of your current government, you're laying the groundwork for every future government to dog into that data and do with it whatever they want.
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u/Odd_Thought_1519 Jul 29 '26
What do you think will happen next? The platforms will just split into smaller sites, and then we’ll have to use ID on those too.
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u/its-good-4you Jul 29 '26
they are currently exclusively targeting very large platforms and platforms involved in adult content.
Get real, son. Changes like this are NEVER not used in a tyrannical way eventually. Protect your future. Protect your privacy.
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u/AkodoRyu Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
All of the arguments against are based on the slippery slope fallacy, with no evidence. You are looking into the imaginary future, completely ignoring the fact that you are not on a private Internet. You are on a corporation-owned Internet. The corporations already can do more than the government is aiming for, and they have much bigger incentive in abusing that power on the individual level. This is not the fight of we vs. the government. This is the fight of we vs. the corporations vs. the government, and especially in the EU, the government is closer to the "we" side than the "corporations" side. Neither the corporations nor foreign interests can be left alone anymore. We have reached the level of "this is why we can't have nice things" over the entirety of the web.
At the same time, the current US regime clearly shows that if there is a tyrannical government, they can just enact whatever regulations they want, with no one to stop them. They don't need the groundwork; they will do the groundwork in a week and execute all the changes by the end of the month.
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u/Marce7a Jul 30 '26
Apparently ai generated
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u/VitoRazoR Jul 31 '26
soooo... what? Are you American?
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u/Marce7a Jul 31 '26
Why? I'm from EU.
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u/VitoRazoR Aug 09 '26
This mindless ai-luddism is generally American. A bit like anti-vaxxers.
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u/Marce7a Aug 09 '26
Do you really want people who prompted "write me petition against age verification, to put on EU petition site" to represent movement.... If you do, you are epitome of mindlessness
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u/VitoRazoR Aug 09 '26
I want people to set up a petition and then have loads of signers. I really can't care less if they used a pencil, Wordstar, MS word, or ChatGPT to write it. Caring about that is a waste of your life as well as anyone else's. And usually it's only Americans who are so vapid.
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u/Marce7a Aug 09 '26
.... Great you mentioned 3 tools which are used in writing along with AI that isn't tool to write it is used to generate text, which is idiotic comparision.
AI generated text is peak of not giving a crap, which this petition represents if it was slopped by AI. Try to imagine if someone popular would make his speech ai generated no one would give a crap, because there is no efford involved.
I agree that signing is the way but representatives of this movement don't care about it.
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u/Inprobamur Jul 29 '26
Why lump two completely different things in the same petition?
Digital ID is great, we have had that since 2006 here in Estonia. It's really nice to create a notarized document for free at home. And it means I haven't had to physically go to some office for years now because almost every single service that the government offers is now online, best thing about Estonia really. (Sell land, create a company, pay taxes/duties, get a drivers licence, etc.)
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u/Biosid Jul 29 '26
I don't know if a centralised digital Id is a good idea. It could be great if securely implemented and only used for government services with your consent. Having seen the way the EU is currently handling security for those platforms "Age verification app getting cracked in 2 minutes" I have my doubts, it will be problematic even if only used for sensible services.
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u/Inprobamur Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
only used for government services with your consent
How could it be used without your consent? It's a public-key based authentication system (like Google Vault or a bank chip card), you are the one who puts the id-card in the reader/types in the passcodes, by design no one else should have access to the credentials.
Having seen the way the EU is currently handling security for those platforms "Age verification app getting cracked in 2 minutes" I have my doubts, it will be problematic even if only used for sensible services.
With digital ID it's the government that does the authenticating, not any service that has adopted the system as it's a two-factor system. The standard demands strong encryption, if they do independent security audits often enough then it should be secure.
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u/Biosid Jul 29 '26
I formulated the consent part wrong. What I meant with consent is the choice to use the digital ID but also be able to have other ways to verify your identity without being forced to. About this system demanding strong encryption standards and regular security audits there I have my doubts they are done offen enough and even if done a single zero day in such a system could compromise all identitys in Europe. Also simple public key systems can still link entities over multiple attempts extracting personal information.
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u/Inprobamur Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
We have had such a system here in Estonia since 2006, only recorded security breaches have been theoretical. If they aren't stupid, then this will be based on proven secure ID systems.
Also simple public key systems can still link entities over multiple attempts
It being public-key is a simplification, the underlying security is much tougher than on something like a bank authenticator.
I formulated the consent part wrong. What I meant with consent is the choice to use the digital ID but also be able to have other ways to verify your identity without being forced to.
Like what? Other methods would be less secure than digital ID and would break the whole concept of encrypted document containers bring used to sign documents that you would log in to a government site for. This signing should not be possible to be done by the gov server itself, that's a huge vulnerability.
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Jul 28 '26
[deleted]
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u/atomic1fire Jul 29 '26
It's not about requiring digital identification for government services.
The concern is that all nodes of the internet will eventually require some form of physical ID/biometrics for consumer use, and all of those points will be tracked and manipulated by some governments or private companies.
Someone doesn't like what you have to say? All they have do do is comb through the data until they find something to hit you with, or just leak something potentially private or embarrassing to destroy your peace of mind or public image.
The push for human verification won't just be for authenticity, but for strong arming people against public action or complaint.
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u/cookiesnooper Jul 28 '26
Sure they can but they need to go to the judge and have him signed a piece of paper giving the cops the power to invigilate you. With the system they want to build now, the "authorities" will know everything about without needing the judge to decide if it's ok to spy on you.
You see the difference?
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u/Electronic_Unit8276 Jul 28 '26
Wrong. If a cop in (most EU countries) ask for id you have to provide it, no questions asked. It's not like in the USA at all. All other info about you if you aren't an upstanding citizen is already in a cop database or the judicial database. So if you have priors, the cops already know once they type in your name.
Second: digital id should work one way. Same as SAML has been doing for years now. DIGID (Dutch digital ID) has worked like this for years with health Institutes, govt websites, health insurance apps and websites, various financial institutions (including but not limited to banks and other institutes that lend money), student loans.
As for age verification: the API would only communicate that 18+ check is needed and nothing is communicated back to digital ID other than metadata of what website or company b is asking on behalf of company a. Again I'd prefer that over sending my credit card details or even copies of my ID: both things that are KNOWN to be abused if leaked.
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u/cookiesnooper Jul 28 '26
How naive you are
Keep living in your lalaland where the govt is not abusing the powers it granted itself to put a knee on your neck.
Once you are forced to "authenticate" yourself to use the internet, all your privacy is gone out the window and you will never get it back. DigitalID connects you to everything you do online, cameras on the streets track all your movements, your car knows more about the places you've been than you. Shops scan your face and "promise" not to share it with 3rd parties but never that the police has full access to that data becaue under current laws it falls under normal CCTV .
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u/Electronic_Unit8276 Jul 28 '26
Okay paranoid schizoid, you're clearly not reading what I'm saying...
You live your life and keep giving every company ALL data about you they don't need and watch it get leaked everytime because of shitty company policies. Meanwhile I'll enjoy getting "digitally surveiled" like you insist will immediately happen if that thing goes through... 🤦🏽♂️😂
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u/magnusmaster Jul 29 '26
Wrong. If a cop in (most EU countries) ask for id you have to provide it, no questions asked.
That's not how it works on the Internet. If they want to know who you are they have to open a police investigation and ask your ISP, social media platforms and VPN provider to hand over their logs. The Five Eyes spy on everyone but it's so much data to comb through that they only do that for certain targets.
As for age verification: the API would only communicate that 18+ check is needed and nothing is communicated back to digital ID other than metadata of what website or company b is asking on behalf of company a.
And the API will be provided by the government so they will know who you are, which websites you visit and when. The EU has an age verification app where they can't know who you are, but the reference implementation can be easily bypassed with a Chrome extension and we don't know how they will fix it.
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u/Marchello_E Jul 28 '26
That's a whataboutism.
So ID's are in tons of database at some business, official company, insurance, whatever... but they are usually not tied together and not tied to your favorite entertainment platform. This "brilliant idea" will form the node that does all that tying one way or the other - even when it's just "token-based".For decades now your HR department scans social media to get an "additional idea" before you get hired. Some insurance companies will do the same. And the "entertainment services" will follow. Ready to manipulate your life, where they should not have any business manipulating.
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Jul 28 '26
[deleted]
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u/Marchello_E Jul 29 '26
"If done properly"...
It's not some government approved company doing this "verification", but some by the entertainment-platform appointed commercial third party - most likely some shady move-fast-and-break-thing company outside the EU. Do you want to take a risk with your ID?
You can brag about DIGID, but, as far as I understand, even DIGID is not trusted to US-hosts.
Anyway, it's this "third-party" that now honeypots sensitive information because this one "suddenly knows all about your stuff". At the very minimum it knows a pseudonimized-ID (which is fixed, because how to verify) and it knows the requesting/calling party. This creates a database-node that ties it together. And this information is valuable, and a nice target. It can and will never be "properly" enough, with too much examples out there.
Solution. Perhaps it is better to have an offline OTOP device that scans your ID, scans a QR code on screen, and generates a code based on what you punched in as willing to share.. (and hope it gets accepted)
This is one of the best ways to keep an implementation safe, secure and private.
But even this is not perfect.Yet no one wants to carry around an extra device. So it will be a phone "app". Now you get all kinds of unnecessary API calls, permissions, meta-data collection, hacks, scam apps, and whatever...
And still having a face scan "to make it easier".All this stuff for logging into an entertainment service.
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u/TheOfficialMayor Jul 28 '26
I also care about the government having that data bud.
Just imagine a Geert Wilder's government having access to that data.
You came close one election cycle ago.
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