'The death of privacy online' — Proton launches interactive map to show age verification laws are spreading fast

Article sucks - the "interactive map" link just takes you to an ad to buy proton

Here's the actual map

https://proton.me/age-verification

It's funny; Switzerland doesn't have the age verification laws, but it's the only place I know of that is developing a government-run privacy-preserving age verification system.

Though if I had to guess, that's something Estonia already has.

While these laws continue to provoke criticism from scientists, tech experts, and digital rights advocates, Proton aims to ensure that the public remains properly informed by providing timely updates as new legislation advances.

Clicking on any country reveals information about the progress of legislative proposals in that region, with the tool offering a detailed overview of the different approaches adopted by governments regarding age verification legislation.

In Europe, for example, 18 countries have already implemented or proposed age verification requirements targeting adult content. Fifteen of these have already introduced measures specifically aimed at social media platforms.

He is not alone in holding these views. Many privacy advocates and digital rights organizations argue that current age verification methods encourage the growth of surveillance while compromising users' privacy.

Critics also point to past failures in ensuring the security of sensitive data. Breaches involving Discord's third-party age verification service affecting over 70,000 users or the EU’s age verification app, allegedly hacked in two minutes, are just a few examples of the scale of the problem.

The picture looks even bleaker when one considers that many experts from youth organizations and children’s charities seem to agree that such methods could have harmful effects on young people browsing the Internet.

As opposition continues to grow — from scientists calling for the suspension of mandatory age verification to gaming groups and digital rights activists joining forces to prevent the erosion of Internet freedom — Yen argues that alternatives are possible.

Mullvad co-owner donates to a fascist party then Proton launches this great service

Proton uses the death of privacy to sell more security theatre. Got to love capitalism. Maybe people should throw some more money at the problem!

Excellent choice, Donald Trump! The Democrats used to push for child protection laws but somewhere along the line the parties switched . . .

Yeah, yeah, I’m going

Ok, so a question i keep on having about this. It seems like there is two flavours: this is awesome because it will protect children or this is terrible because we will have to give out our data to untrustworthy parties all the time. I can very easily see how this is a bad thing that should be prevented. What i cannot see is if there is any possible middle-ground. Are there places where this is implemented reasonably well / could there be a way to have the best of both worlds? I am personally not a fan of being against something in it's entirety, whish there was like a reasonable compromise on this.