ORG warns UK government against age-gating the Internet

In its detailed response to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) consultation on further measures to protect children online, the Open Rights Group has warned against expanding age restrictions as a primary online safety measure for children. 

ORG's response notes how age restrictions were initially implemented in 2025 to restrict access to pornographic material. Since then, the measure has rapidly expanded to gaming, app stores, and social media, with new proposals threatening to encompass VPNs and static websites.

ORG argues that the government approaches social media harms in isolation, failing to adopt the recommended systems-based approach. The response goes on to discuss how Children's mental health is shaped by complex, interconnected real-world factors that online platforms merely reflect or amplify. Restricting platform access risks oversimplifying these problems and could cause unintended harms by cutting off vulnerable, isolated, or disabled youth from vital support networks, education, and social connections.

Furthermore, ORG points to evidence indicating that age-assurance mechanisms are ineffective at preventing young people from accessing restricted online services and are significantly less privacy-preserving than the public realises. Expanding these systems risks normalising identity verification across the open Internet, citing implications for privacy, anonymity, freedom of expression, and access to lawful information. 

ORG recommends that the government look beyond safety-by-design measures and adopt a broader, systems-based approach, recognising the wider social, economic, technological, and market forces that contribute to online harms and poor mental health outcomes. Within this, it should look at the attention economy business model, engagement-driven recommender systems, platform lock-in, as well as interoperable, community-driven, and public-interest alternatives to dominant technology platforms.

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