The European Commission is stepping up its work on digital age verification on the internet - and is now also looking at VPN services. Critics warn that this development risks becoming another step towards a monitored internet, where Europeans' anonymity and freedom are gradually dismantled.
The background is the EU's new online age verification system, where users will effectively have to prove their identity digitally to access certain platforms and services. At the same time, EU leaders are concerned that people may be able to bypass the systems through VPNs - technologies used to protect privacy and anonymity online.
Vice-President of the European Commission Henna Virkkunen said during a press conference that it is important to ensure that age verification ”cannot be circumvented”. The statement has been interpreted as meaning that the EU now also wants to restrict the possibility of using VPNs to avoid the control systems.
VPN used by journalists, dissidents and ordinary citizens
VPN technology is not only used by young people who want to bypass age limits on social media. It is a fundamental privacy tool for journalists, whistleblowers, business owners and ordinary internet users.
VPNs allow people to protect their browsing history from internet service providers, avoid tracking and communicate more securely in countries where surveillance is extensive.
Starting to treat anonymity and encrypted communications as a ”problem” therefore raises serious concerns among privacy advocates. Critics argue that the EU risks creating the same type of control mechanisms previously associated mainly with authoritarian states.
Facts: What is VPN? VPN stands for “virtual private network” - a service that protects your internet connection and online privacy by hiding your IP address. A VPN creates a tunnel for your internet connection and hides your address. This means that no one can see what you're doing on the internet when you have a VPN enabled. The service also allows the user to choose where the IP address comes from, which makes it possible to avoid censorship that applies to a specific location, such as a country.
The EU is simultaneously building out digital identity infrastructure
While Brussels claims that age verification is ”voluntary”, the Union is rapidly building out the infrastructure behind the system.
The European Commission has already unveiled an official age verification app that links to passports or national ID documents. The system will also integrate with the upcoming European Digital Identity Wallet.
The Commission describes the solution as ”privacy-preserving”, but many experts are skeptical. Security researchers previously managed to bypass some of the system's protections shortly after the code was published.
The big problem, however, is not just about technical flaws - but about the principle itself.
When the state or large technology platforms require digital credentials to access the internet, it creates the possibility to control, restrict and monitor people's digital lives on a whole new scale.
From ”child protection” to permanent monitoring structure?
The EU justifies this development on the grounds of protecting children online. But critics warn that the same infrastructure could later be used for completely different purposes.
Once the system is in place, it can be extended to more areas relatively easily:
- social media
- forums and comments sections
- AI services
- news sites
- encrypted messaging apps
- politically sensitive content
Historically, monitoring systems have often been introduced in stages - first to address a specific problem, then gradually expanded.
Several privacy organizations are now warning that Europe is building an internet where anonymity becomes an exception rather than a right.
Online freedom must be defended
The debate is fundamentally about more than just social media and age limits. It is about who will control the internet in the future.
An open society is based on the ability to communicate freely, read information anonymously and express opinions without constant identification and tracking.
Swedes and Europeans have long taken digital freedom for granted. But developments in Brussels show that these rights now need to be actively defended.
Privacy and anonymity technologies are not a threat to democracy - on the contrary, they are often a safeguard against abuse of power.
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In terms of oppression, abuse and murder of its own people, the former Soviet dictatorship is matched and possibly surpassed only by the Chinese Communist dictatorship.
We in the West are certainly aware of this and therefore often reflect with gratitude on the fact that we have not suffered such atrocities. At the same time, more and more people are beginning to notice that the EU is systematically transferring power from the people to higher levels of decision-making, which in turn is neither based on democratic decision-making processes nor even allows for transparency about what issues are being dealt with above the heads of citizens.
Already today we have a control society with more or less hidden repression against individuals, organizations and parties with ”wrong” opinions. The bank terror against dissidents (including Frihetsnytt) and the withdrawal of BankID for non-accused citizens (such as Pär Öberg in NMR) speak for themselves.
At the same time, the power media speak their clear language through continued silence and continued discrediting of those with the wrong opinions. Already here is self-censorship of a more serious kind than that which occurred in the former Soviet dictatorship, where a majority of the population was, after all, aware of how oppression and hypocrisy of opinion were linked.
So now the people-hating globalists are taking further freedom from individuals and giving it to themselves. We will no longer be able to visit any site we want on the Internet without the risk of being recorded and thus of being subjected to discrediting or much more serious abuse.
This madness must be stopped! The so-called subsidiarity principle (proximity principle), which was hyped in the early days of the criminal organization, is nowhere to be seen. Instead of decisions being taken at the lowest possible level with decentralization as the general guiding principle, the EU has increasingly shown its true colors over time.
In some respects, the EU is a more dangerous criminal organization than any communist dictatorship, in that the abuses against the people can take place much more covertly. Therefore, we all need to work together to stop the EU's advance at the expense of the people while we initiate a reverse transfer of power from higher to lower levels; that is, decentralization with reduced political control.
Step 1: SWEXIT NOW!
Step 2: Continuing to build a new fairytale kingdom based on love, community and meritocracy!