AfD Member of the European Parliament Christine Anderson stated:
“Under the guise of child protection, a system is being established that will allow the Commission to force users in the future to disclose their identity in order to use online services. Past experience with the Digital Services Act shows: what begins as ‘voluntary’ quickly turns into de facto coercion.
The protection of children must not be used as a pretext to build an infrastructure that undermines anonymous use of the internet. Give Brussels an inch, and it will take a mile.
Clear limits are therefore needed: no mandatory age verification, no gradual expansion of general identification requirements, no indirect introduction of a real-name policy, and no shifting of competences at the expense of the Member States.”
AfD Member of the European Parliament and member of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), Mary Khan, added:
“The age verification app presented by the Commission is not a proportionate tool for child protection. Instead, it creates the technical basis for further control measures on the internet and effectively ends the anonymous use of digital services. Citizens have already experienced during the COVID period how undemocratic such technical verification measures can be used. Europe must not become a surveillance state!”
