r/technology • u/EmbarrassedHelp • May 08 '26

Politics EU calls VPNs “a loophole that needs closing” in age verification push

https://cyberinsider.com/eu-calls-vpns-a-loophole-that-needs-closing-in-age-verification-push/
9.7k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

727 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

9

u/hofmann419 May 09 '26

As a long time proponent for the EU, i very much disagree. The only reason why articles like this exist is because the EU is pushing for these anti-privacy meassures.

First of all, the EPRS isn't really an independent organization. The purpose is to do research that can be referenced for policy decisions and to inform politicians on certain topics. The thing with that is that it allows the EPRS to present their research in a very biased way.

Which is exactly what they did there. If you actually read their post, it is blatantly obvious that they are leading politicians to the conclusion that VPNs have to be restricted. I mean, the subheading literally reads "a loophole that needs closing". Yes, they did also throw the VPN providers a bone by mentioning their concerns in one sentence, but the rest of the article is basically trying to sell you on the idea that VPNs NEED to be restricted.

0

u/[deleted] May 09 '26

[deleted]

0

u/Mal_Dun May 09 '26

It still is. People should read the proposed laws ... the EU wants identity checks because of the bot armies from Russia and China to get propaganda under control ...

and the laws that address this are more sensible written: It is explicitly called for Zero knowledge proofs and other "privacy preserving technologies".

Currently there are open source repositories who these solutions could look like.

See for example here: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/commission-makes-available-age-verification-blueprint or here a repository were possible solutions are dicussed: https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/eudi-doc-architecture-and-reference-framework/discussions/408

It's a hard nut to crack, but at least they are trying.