The internet’s fundamental plumbing is getting a major overhaul. For decades, the web operated as an anonymous network where data packets moved without caring who requested them. That era is closing. Billions Network CEO Evin McMullen just published an op-ed in CoinDesk calling out a quiet mechanism built into recent internet safety legislation. Lawmakers are successfully turning anonymous web browsing into identified browsing through mandatory age verification.
Two major Western legislative efforts just advanced by shedding their most controversial parts to secure passage. In the U.S., the KIDS Act dropped its “duty of care” standard that critics feared would turn platforms into speech police. On June 29, lawmakers pushed the KIDS Act through the House in a 267-117 vote, according to coverage by the IAPP.
The European Union took a similar path. European negotiators wrapped up their fifth trilogue session for Chat Control 2.0 late last month, officially dropping mandatory client-side scanning of private messages. The EU has been rushing to finalize this permanent framework ever since the temporary Chat Control 1.0 derogation expired in April. But McMullen notes that in both the EU and U.S. packages, strict age verification mandates easily survived the cuts.
This requires an incredible shift in consumer tech infrastructure. To enforce targeted advertising bans for users under 17, platforms must now verify the age of every single person who connects to their servers. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) warned that these sweeping age-check mandates force all users—adults and children—to hand over sensitive personal data just to access basic internet services.
Tech executives are already bracing for the new normal. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison recently welcomed the shift toward constant tracking, suggesting that citizens will be on their best behavior because systems are continuously recording and reporting. It takes serious engineering to authenticate billions of daily users, and the tech industry is building the checkpoints right now.
How Digital ID Checkpoints Change Web Hosting
The physical reality of enforcing the KIDS Act and Chat Control 2.0 goes far beyond legal compliance. It forces a complete rewrite of how data centers handle incoming traffic. Platforms can no longer serve a static webpage to an anonymous IP address. They must now integrate third-party identity verification APIs into the very first handshake a browser makes with a server.
This creates incredible friction for user onboarding and introduces an unprecedented new honeypot of identity data. As the EFF pointed out, forcing adults to upload government IDs to read the news fundamentally breaks the concept of anonymous free expression. The tech industry is essentially being deputized to build the largest identity-gating system in human history.