What could possibly go wrong?
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer seems to be on precarious ground. Just two years into his first term, he is now recorded as the most unpopular prime minister in history, having garnered this unsettling label within his first year. Recently, over 100 backbench members of parliament (MPs) have urged him to resign.
On Thursday, Starmer’s defence secretary stepped down, marking the seventh high-ranking minister to depart in recent months and the 21st since the government took office two years ago.
Starmer has made it clear that he will not resign, yet he is likely to encounter a leadership challenge soon. Should Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Manchester, win the Makerfield by-election on June 18, he will become an MP and thus might become eligible to contest for leadership of the Labour party and, potentially, the premiership of the UK.
Despite these challenges, Starmer remains far from a figurehead. He commands a significant parliamentary majority, albeit one that supports him grudgingly. He is utilizing this majority to advance policies that could empower his government—and possibly future administrations led by figures like Nigel Farage—with unprecedented levels of digital surveillance and control, a scenario we cautioned about back in July 2024:
Starmer, much like his mentor Tony Blair, possesses distinct technocratic tendencies. Upon returning from the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos earlier this year, he was asked in a news podcast to choose between Davos and Westminster. He immediately opted for Davos, stating that there he could, “actually engage with people who can work with you in the future,” whereas Westminster was merely a “shouting place.”
“So let us ask – you have to choose between Davos & Westminster?”
Keir Starmer – “Davos” pic.twitter.com/NMIEEFUWBf
— James Melville 🚜 (@JamesMelville) June 12, 2024
The World Economic Forum has notably championed the advancement and implementation of digital identity systems since its strategic partnership with the UN in 2019.
A Direct Assault on End-to-End Encryption
In a recent address at London Tech Week, Starmer issued an ultimatum to technology firms operating in the UK: implement device controls to prevent children from sending and receiving explicit images, or the government would introduce mandatory legislation to achieve this in just three months.
The UK aims to become the first nation globally to prohibit children from taking, sharing, or viewing nude images on their devices. To realize this goal, companies are being urged to adopt what is known as client-side scanning for all users under 16—a highly controversial method discussed previously in our article on the EU’s proposed Chat Control law, “The EU’s Latest Plan to Stifle Online Privacy Is Terrifying.”
If tech companies yield to this pressure—or if Starmer follows through on his threat while still in office in three months’ time—every child’s messages and images will undergo pre-approval, while adults will be mandated to provide a form of identification to utilize their devices without restrictions. As I understand it, this system would operate at the operating system level, rendering VPNs ineffective for bypassing such scrutiny.
The technology enabling client-side scanning is already available. Anish Moonka, an Indian tech analyst, explains on Twitter that if widely adopted, this system would significantly undermine end-to-end encryption—an essential security feature that safeguards data from unauthorized access during transfer. The government’s intentions here are clear:
Apple previously developed this precise tool in 2021, but after security researchers revealed its potential to flag innocent users’ content, the company scrapped it 16 months later. The UK is now demanding tech companies to build it within three months, threatening jail time for those who refuse.
Client-side scanning alters the traditional encryption sequence: now, your device analyzes every image and message against a forbidden content database prior to encryption. While the messages remain locked, the inspection takes place first—meaning when the government mandates scanning for nude images, it technically translates to “scan everything.”
Experts in internet security, including Ronald Rivest and Whitfield Diffie, have already decried this approach. In a paper from October 2021, they concluded that device-level scanning compromises security for users and provides law enforcement only unreliable benefits. Once this infrastructure is in place on phones, any government can apply it to target whatever content they deem inappropriate next.
The proposed legislation purports to target minors, yet the actual requirement would necessitate inspecting every device’s camera, messaging apps, and gallery in a bid to identify just a single prohibited photo.
What starts with controlling nude images can easily extend into broader censorship of speech. As the mobile messaging service Signal points out, “Forcing all UK residents to verify their age and have their content scanned just to exercise their fundamental right to communicate poses a grave risk.”:
The UK government’s demand for scanning all content on devices used in the UK, based on presumptions of nudity and employing a dystopian blend of age verification and content scanning, will not ensure child safety. Instead, it endangers everyone while simultaneously bolstering the dominance and control of companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft over our most sensitive data…
Mass surveillance and censorship, no matter how well-intentioned those who initiate them may be, rarely stay narrow in focus. Once established, these systems stretch further, becoming tools wielded for censorship both in the UK and internationally to silence what they treat as ‘threats’ or ‘harmful content.’
Assurances that this scanning process will strictly occur on users’ devices offer little comfort. Regardless of the location, including within the “camera” on UK devices, its purpose will be dictated by the government’s whims today regarding nudity and potentially political discourse tomorrow.
“Australia-Plus” Social Media Ban
In a follow-up announcement this week, the Starmer government detailed a ban on major social media and streaming platforms for users under 16, set to take effect by Spring 2027. This prohibition is expected to cover Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, and X, though curiously, Bluesky is exempt. A curfew on social media for individuals under 18 is also under consideration.
The Starmer administration is referring to this initiative as “Australia-plus,” seeking to improve upon a similar but less successful ban implemented in Australia back in December. As we previously warned, Australian teenagers discovered numerous work-arounds, including the use of VPNs. The latest compliance update from Australia’s eSafety Commissioner indicates that 70% of the 898 parents surveyed revealed their children still had active social media accounts.
“Evidence from Australia suggests that such bans typically prove ineffective. Over sixty percent of underage users circumvented restrictions as platforms neglected to close existing accounts, and many employed simple workarounds like alternative routing or shared accounts,” notes Professor Elvira Perez Vallejos of the University of Nottingham.
The concern extends beyond the ineffectiveness of these measures. Biometric age estimation can easily be deceived by high-quality photographs, deepfakes, or AI-generated images. There is also the potential for unintended consequences, warns Dr. Hisham Al-Assam, an associate professor in Computing at the University of Buckingham:
Gathering identity documents and biometric information on a large scale would create prime targets for hackers, increasing the risk of unprecedented data breaches and identity theft.
The deeper issue is structural. The internet is designed for routing information, not verifying human identities. Enforcing state-mandated identity verification across the network thus rests on foundations never intended for such a purpose, making these systems inherently fragile, expensive, and vulnerable.
Australia pioneered the under-16 social media ban in the West, and since then, more than twenty countries worldwide have either proposed or implemented similar bans, as reported by Taylor Lorenz in *The Guardian*:
These laws, often advanced in the name of “child safety,” usher in a new era of mass surveillance and widespread censorship, contributing to what scholars deem a “global free speech recession.”
Last year, Australia became the first country to bar anyone under 16 from accessing social media. This decision incited other nations to swiftly follow suit. Germany’s ruling party recently revealed it was supporting a social media ban, while French President Emmanuel Macron has advocated for banning social media for under-15s. In the UK, Starmer has sought to implement sweeping social media restrictions. Similar online identity verification laws are being pursued in Greece, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Japan.
In the US, age verification laws have passed or are under consideration in more than half the states. A package of 19 “child safety” bills is poised to progress in the House of Representatives, with major tech companies like Meta, Google, and Discord preparing for these regulations.
Pretty sure this is all coordinated between key Western states that want to eliminate online anonymity https://t.co/IIzwCEVOS1
— Alonso Gurmendi (@Alonso_GD) June 15, 2026
We have maintained since July 2024 that online age verification is essentially a Trojan horse for the widespread implementation of digital IDs. An Australian government official confessed during Senate testimony in November 2024 that age verification ultimately traps everyone in its net, not just minors:
Social Media Ban for Under 16’s (aka the Trojan horse Digital ID for ALL Australians)
All Australians will be required to undergo an age verification process to access social media, not just those under 16… pic.twitter.com/LgPu5DXdek
— Glen Schaefer (@hardenuppete) November 10, 2024
The Starmer government’s proposed online age verification would achieve a similar outcome, as indicated in the following headline. Simply put, this represents an ID check for all adults across social media.
JUST IN: UK Government clarifies adults will still be able to use social media by verifying their identities using digital IDs, facial recognition, passports, and credit cards.
— Polymarket (@Polymarket) June 15, 2026
“This would mean millions of British adults would have to surrender passports, biometric data, or financial information to tech companies just to access online services,” notes Dr. Hisham Al-Assam. “Essentially, the privacy of the entire population would be sacrificed to regulate a minority.”
This reality is not lost on numerous UK commentators:
It’s crucial to understand that the social media ban for under 16s is not an actual ban for the under 16s.
It is a ban on *selected* social media for EVERYONE until they verify their identity.
— Ranty Man (@RanTeeThree) June 15, 2026
This isn’t a ban for under-16s; it’s simply digital IDs repackaged.
— Alonso Gurmendi (@Alonso_GD) June 15, 2026
The key takeaway here is that what’s marketed as a ‘social media ban for children’ is, in reality, an ID check for every adult.
— Jonathan Pie (@JonathanPieNews) June 15, 2026
While the ambition to shield children from the more troubling aspects of the Internet and curb their excessive social media use is laudable, it is essential to recognize that government inaction over the past decade has allowed these concerns to escalate. Numerous articles on this site have highlighted the adverse effects arising from children’s cyber habits (e.g., here, here, and here). However, as German financial journalist Norbert Häring points out, governments have largely remained inactive as these harms have proliferated.
It doesn’t take much creativity to envision meaningful measures that could have been implemented long ago: enforcing data protection laws, banning algorithm-driven suggestion systems for social media to mitigate tech companies’ tendency to foster online addiction, manipulating opinions, or inciting radicalization; the development of apps by tech firms or governments allowing parents to monitor their children’s exposure to pornography and online addiction; and instituting smartphone bans within schools.
Yet, governments have taken little action over the past decade and are now using the guise of child protection as a pretext to launch an unprecedented—and likely irreversible—assault on online speech, privacy, and anonymity. The broader objective, as observes Glenn Greenwald, is “surveillance of online activity, the elimination of anonymity, and control over the political content accessible to young people.”
This goal arguably extends even further. Digital identity is not merely a mechanism for surveillance and regulation; it serves as a critical component for all aspects of digital public infrastructure (DPI)—including, notably, central bank digital currencies. Currently, 146 nations and currency unions representing more than 98% of global GDP are exploring digital currencies, as noted by the Atlantic Council’s CBDC Tracker.
In essence, if the push for age verification succeeds in promoting the widespread adoption of digital identity as planned, the introduction of CBDCs will likely follow. This reality is openly recognized by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), which concluded in a 2023 paper that CBDCs must be account-based and indubitably linked to digital identities. Without a digital identity, the implementation of CBDCs could become impossible.
Investigative journalist Whitney Webb posits that the international push for digital IDs is driven by their crucial role in fulfilling Agenda 2030.
“Digital IDs and CBDCs are designed to coexist… Without digital IDs, the CBDC financial system cannot be established…” pic.twitter.com/mKRWWAF3om
— Wide Awake Media (@wideawake_media) April 21, 2026
Lastly, it is important to recognize that social media bans are not only futile; they pose threats to both children and adults, as Lorenz cautions:
Stripping anonymity from the online environment, a likely consequence of tech firms being obliged to track and exclude children, eases government surveillance and censorship of journalists, activists, and whistleblowers who depend on online anonymity.
Though some assert that these laws would limit the influence of big tech, only the largest companies possess the resources to absorb the extensive costs associated with age verification frameworks. Non-profit and indie platforms may be forced out of business, further consolidating the dominance of big tech. Moreover, mass surveillance mechanisms, once established, can be easily exploited by both governments and malicious actors.
The UK’s Home Secretary’s recent revelation during a talk with Tony Blair (who else?) that “her ultimate vision” is to “achieve… what Jeremy Bentham attempted with his Panopticon… so that the state’s gaze can be upon you at all times” is hardly reassuring. In light of such candid expressions of intent from high-ranking officials responsible for policing and national security, it is prudent to heed their words.
This is a government that is not only intent on fundamentally reshaping the Internet experience for everyone—adults included—regardless of the possible repercussions but is also fervently pursuing the elimination of the right to a jury trial in most cases, a principle rooted in common law dating back to the 12th century.
