George Billinge says that many age assurance technologies delete their personal data after age has been confirmed, while some providers of virtual private networks (VPNs) sell their data to brokers (Everything the right – and the left – are getting wrong about the Online Safety Act, 1 August). But there is a key difference: we can choose which VPN to use, but the choice of which age assurance technology to use is with the platform. When a platform I use to talk to my friends insisted I verify my age, I wasn’t given a choice about which age verification service would get my driving licence. I was expected to trust that the platform had made a good decision with my best interests at heart. That’s a pretty big ask.
Instead, I elected to sign up for a VPN. I then paid for it with a payment processor of my choice, one with a proven security record. I spent several days considering and comparing the numerous options before selecting one that doesn’t keep any data – with audits and court successes to prove it. At every step of the process, I was able to choose who I was trusting with my personal data.
I might consider going through the age verification process later – when I get the choice about which service to show my driving licence to. Assuming, of course, that requiring age verification for a group of adults in their 40s to share pet photos and complain about work is ultimately deemed to be within the scope of the legislation. Age verification on porn sites sounds reasonable, but it seems that many platforms are using the Online Safety Act as an excuse to conduct a data grab on a massive scale. We should be wary about who is asking for our ID when the spirit of the law is being so blatantly abused.
Alex Treryth
St Austell, Cornwall
• George Billinge’s focus on tech companies such as Facebook unfortunately echoes the flawed thinking behind the Online Safety Act itself.
While the act tries to distinguish between large tech companies and smaller independent sites, most of the legislation was only written with Meta and their like in mind. In practice, this means that any site that contains user-submitted content, be that a volunteer-run hobbyist forum or a recipe blog with a comment section, is subject to the same rules (and same fines) as Facebook or X. However, unlike these companies, these smaller sites do not have the teams of lawyers to pore over Ofcom’s 1,700-plus pages of guidance, and instead are choosing to either block UK visitors or shut down entirely.
Rather than curtailing the power of big tech, as Billinge suggests, the Online Safety Act only entrenches their power further, by making it impossible for anyone else to comply.
Jonathan Coates
Bristol
