- Australia's eSafety regulator is expanding its age verification mandate to target VPN usage, treating privacy tools as compliance problems.
- Age verification is essentially identity verification, which threatens freedom of expression and creates a chilling effect on anonymous speech.
- VPNs are being targeted as workarounds for age checks on adult and social media sites, with eSafety requiring platforms to block such bypasses.
- Age verification providers are acting as delegated law enforcement, even reporting users for using alternative operating systems.
- The push is part of a broader trend that will likely extend to other privacy tools like Tor and encrypted DNS, ultimately eroding online anonymity.