Online Age Verification Poses Serious Dangers: What are our alternatives?

Governments are increasingly requiring age verification for access to certain online content. In the name of protecting children online, systems for age verification create dangerous new forms of surveillance, censorship, and exclusion. Every system requires users to hand over sensitive personal information linking their offline identity to their online activity — valuable data easily leaked, hacked, or misused. Join Evan Light in his conversation with David Greene, Senior Counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, about the dangers and what should be done. This conversation occurred on Feb. 10, 2026 and was co-sponsored by Edmonton Public Library, PEN Canada, Toronto Public Library, and Vancouver Public Library.