A federal court blocked a provision of Utah’s age-verification law that required websites to determine users’ physical locations even when masked by VPNs, finding the statute demanded a technical impossibility.
The sentiment that living without a VPN has become impossible reflects not a universal technical requirement, but the divergence of the internet into regionally incompatible realities.
Age verification laws have proliferated across jurisdictions in 2025-2026, creating a distributed identity infrastructure that collects biometric and government ID data at scale without demonstrably protecting minors.
On May 15, Mozilla submitted a response to a UK government consultation that proposes age-restricting VPNs. The submission argues that such measures address symptoms rather than root causes of online harm.
As the EU labels VPNs a ‘loophole’ requiring closure, the writing is on the wall for digital privacy tools. Email privacy may be next in the crosshairs.
Age verification systems are expanding across digital services, but they come with a hidden cost: your email privacy and digital anonymity. Here’s what you need to know about protecting yourself.