A Meta executive wanted help cleaning up her inbox and thought the new OpenClaw automated AI agent would be just the trick. For safety’s sake, she made sure to tell it to “confirm before acting” and doing the cleanup. That linguistic child’s lock failed.

Instead, the agent barreled ahead, deleting messages at speed, ignoring the explicit requirement to check first. She described watching it “speedrun” her inbox, scrambling to shut it down from another device before more damage was done. Hundreds of emails vanished. The agent later apologized.

A new AI tool called Einstein is pushing the boundaries of what automation in education looks like. Created by the startup Companion, Einstein does more than generate answers to homework questions. It logs directly into a student’s Canvas account and completes coursework on the student’s behalf.

According to its creators, Einstein operates through its own virtual computer. It can open a browser, navigate class pages, watch lecture videos, read PDFs and essays, write papers, complete quizzes and post replies in discussion boards. Once connected to a student’s account, the system can monitor deadlines and automatically submit assignments.

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Unlike chatbots that respond when prompted, Einstein functions more like a digital stand-in for a human student. After setup, it can run in the background with little ongoing input.

“Students are already using AI. We’re just giving them a better version of it,” Companion CEO Advait Paliwal said in a statement. 

Read more: ‘Machines Can’t Think for You.’ How Learning Is Changing in the Age of AI

How Einstein works

Einstein connects to Canvas, a widely used learning-management system in colleges and high schools. From there, it reviews course materials and identifies assigned tasks. The AI can analyze lecture recordings, summarize readings and generate written work that matches the assignment requirements.

The company says the system produces original essays with citations and context-aware discussion posts. It can also track new announcements and upcoming deadlines. In practice, this means a student could enroll in an online course and let Einstein handle much — if not all — of the required work.

The technology builds on advances in generative AI, browser automation and so-called autonomous agents that can take multistep actions on behalf of their human counterpart. While many students already use AI tools to brainstorm ideas or check grammar, Einstein moves beyond assistance into complete automation.

“Our companions aren’t simple chatbots,” Paliwal said. “Each one has access to an entire virtual computer with a persistent file system and internet access, so they can actually do things on your behalf. This makes ChatGPT look like a toy.”

A crossroads for academic integrity?

The release of Einstein comes at a time when schools are still adapting to widespread AI use. Since the arrival of powerful language models, educators have debated how to distinguish legitimate support from academic dishonesty. Most policies focus on whether students are using AI to help draft or edit their work, or do it entirely for them. 

Einstein complicates that conversation. 

If an AI logs in as a student and completes assignments independently, the question shifts from assistance to substitution. Is the tool essentially taking the student’s place? 

Not all in education are sounding the alarm, though. 

“I think the Canvas method of teaching already has a proclivity for cheating. This change, I think, will ultimately be good because it will force educators to redesign classes to not rely on virtual assignments,” said Nicholas DiMaggio, a PhD student at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business and teaching assistant for a course in consumer behavior this quarter. 

DiMaggio said that this may prompt institutions to emphasize in-person work, oral exams or project-based learning instead. Beyond this one tool, schools will have to decide whether to ban such tools outright, integrate them under strict guidelines or rethink how learning is measured in the age of AI.

Read more: How to Use AI to Get Better Grades — Without Cheating

Every engineering leader watching the agentic coding wave is eventually going to face the same question: if AI can generate production-quality code faster than any team, what does governance look like when the human isn’t writing the code anymore?

Most teams don’t have a good answer yet. Treasure Data, a SoftBank-backed customer data platform serving more than 450 global brands, now has one, though they learned parts of it the hard way.

The company today officially announced Treasure Code, a new AI-native command-line interface that lets data engineers and platform teams operate its full CDP through natural language, with Claude Code handling creation and iteration underneath. It was built by a single engineer.

The company says the coding itself took roughly 60 minutes. But that number is almost beside the point. The more important story is what had to be true before those 60 minutes were possible, and what broke after.

“From a planning standpoint, we still have to plan to derisk the business, and that did take a couple of weeks,” Rafa Flores, Chief Product Officer at Treasure Data, told VentureBeat. “From an ideation and execution standpoint, that’s where you kind of just blend the two and you just go, go, go. And it’s not just prototyping, it’s rolling things out in production in a safe way.”

Build the governance layer first

Before even a single line of code was written, Treasure Data had to answer a harder question: what does the system need to be prohibited from doing, and how do you enforce that at the platform level rather than hoping the code respects it?

The guardrails Treasure Data built live upstream of the code itself. When any user connects to the CDP through Treasure Code, access control and permission management are inherited directly from the platform. Users can only reach resources they already have permission for. PII cannot be exposed. API keys cannot be surfaced. The system cannot speak disparagingly about a brand or competitor.

“We had to get CISOs involved. I was involved. Our CTO, heads of engineering, just to make sure that this thing didn’t just go rogue,” Flores said.

This foundation made the next step possible: letting AI generate 100% of the codebase, with a three-tier quality pipeline enforcing production standards throughout.

The three-tier pipeline for AI code generation 

The first tier is an AI-based code reviewer also using Claude Code.

The code reviewer sits at the pull request stage and runs a structured review checklist against every proposed merge, checking for architectural alignment, security compliance, proper error handling, test coverage and documentation quality. When all criteria are satisfied it can merge automatically. When they aren’t, it flags for human intervention.

The fact that Treasure Data built the code reviewer in Claude Code is not incidental. It means the tool validating AI-generated code was itself AI-generated, a proof point that the workflow is self-reinforcing rather than dependent on a separate human-written quality layer.

The second tier is a standard CI/CD pipeline running automated unit, integration and end-to-end tests, static analysis, linting and security checks against every change. The third is human review, required wherever automated systems flag risk or enterprise policy demands sign-off.

The internal principle Treasure Data operates under: AI writes code, but AI does not ship code.

Why this isn’t just Cursor pointed at a database

The obvious question for any engineering team is why not just point an existing tool like Cursor at your data platform, or expose it as an MCP server and let Claude Code query it directly.

Flores argued the difference is governance depth. A generic connection gives you natural language access to data but inherits none of the platform’s existing permission structures, meaning every query runs with whatever access the API key allows. 

Treasure Code inherits Treasure Data’s full access control and permissioning layer, so what a user can do through natural language is bounded by what they’re already authorized to do in the platform. 

The second distinction is orchestration. Because Treasure Code connects directly to Treasure Data’s AI Agent Foundry, it can coordinate sub-agents and skills across the platform rather than executing single tasks in isolation: the difference between telling an AI to run an analysis and having it orchestrate that analysis across omni-channel activation, segmentation and reporting simultaneously.

What broke anyway

Even with the governance architecture in place, the launch didn’t go cleanly, and Flores was candid about it.

Treasure Data initially made Treasure Code available to customers without a go-to-market plan. The assumption was that it would stay quiet while the team figured out next steps. Customers found it anyway. More than 100 customers and close to 1,000 users adopted it within two weeks, entirely through organic discovery.

“We didn’t put any go-to-market motions behind it. We didn’t think people were going to find it. Well, they did,” Flores said. “We were left scrambling with, how do we actually do the go-to-market motions? Do we even do a beta, since technically it’s live?”

The unplanned adoption also created a compliance gap. Treasure Data is still in the process of formally certifying Treasure Code under its Trust AI compliance program, a certification it had not completed before the product reached customers.

A second problem emerged when Treasure Data opened skill development to non-engineering teams. CSMs and account directors began building and submitting skills without understanding what would get approved and merged, creating significant wasted effort and a backlog of submissions that couldn’t clear the repository’s access policies.

Enterprise validation and what’s still missing

Thomson Reuters is among the early adopters. Flores said that the company had been attempting to build an in-house AI agent platform and struggling to move fast enough. It connected with Treasure Data’s AI Agent Foundry to accelerate audience segmentation work, then extended into Treasure Code to customize and iterate more rapidly.

The feedback, Flores said, has centered on extensibility and flexibility, and the fact that procurement was already done, removing a significant enterprise barrier to adoption.

The gap Thomson Reuters has flagged, and that Flores acknowledges the product doesn’t yet address, is guidance on AI maturity. Treasure Code doesn’t tell users who should use it, what to tackle first, or how to structure access across different skill levels within an organization.

“AI that allows you to be leveraged, but also tells you how to leverage it, I think that’s very differentiated,” Flores said. He sees it as the next meaningful layer to build.

What engineering leaders should take from this

Flores has had time to reflect on what the experience actually taught him, and he was direct about what he’d change. Next time, he said, the release would stay internal first.

“We will release it internally only. I will not release it to anyone outside of the organization,” he said. “It will be more of a controlled release so we can actually learn what we’re actually being exposed to at lower risk.”

On skill development, the lesson was to establish clear criteria for what gets approved and merged before opening the process to teams outside engineering, not after.

The common thread in both lessons is the same one that shaped the governance architecture and the three-tier pipeline: speed is only an advantage if the structure around it holds. For engineering leaders evaluating whether agentic coding is ready for production, the Treasure Data experience translates into three practical conclusions.

1. Governance infrastructure has to precede the code, not follow it. The platform-level access controls and permission inheritance were what made it safe to let AI generate freely. Without that foundation, the speed advantage disappears because every output requires exhaustive manual review.

2. A quality gate that doesn’t depend entirely on humans is not optional at scale.
   Build a quality gate that doesn’t depend entirely on humans. AI can review every pull request consistently, without fatigue, and check policy compliance systematically across the entire codebase. Human review remains essential, but as a final check rather than the primary quality mechanism.

3. Plan for organic adoption. If the product works, people will find it before you’re ready. The compliance and go-to-market gaps Treasure Data is still closing are a direct result of underestimating that.

“Yes, vibe coding can work if done in a safe way and proper guardrails are in place,” Flores said. “Embrace it in a way to find means of not replacing the good work you do, but the tedious work that you can probably automate.”

The postgrad course in circuit design is the first of its kind in Europe, according to Maynooth.

A new master’s degree in circuit design at Maynooth University aims to deliver skilled workers in the semiconductor sector in alignment with the Irish Government’s ‘Silicon Island’ strategy.

The degree programme – designed in collaboration with MIDAS Ireland, an Irish innovation cluster – is the first dedicated course of its kind anywhere in Europe, according to the university and the Government.

The 15-month programme mixes nine months of classroom learning with a full-time, paid placement in industry for students to gain real-world experience.

Prof Eeva Leinonen, president of Maynooth University, said: “This innovative, new master’s programme reflects Maynooth University’s ongoing commitment to partnering with government and industry to deliver academic programmes that respond directly to Ireland’s strategic skills needs.

“Our graduates will be equipped to contribute immediately to Ireland’s and Europe’s semiconductor ambitions, from advanced chip design to innovation in emerging applications.”

Silicon Island is the Government’s national plan for the Irish semiconductor industry, and is geared towards generating skilled workers, design expertise and co-operation between third-level institutions and companies in line with the European Chips Act – the EU initiative for the bloc’s future around semiconductor sovereignty and independence.

Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment Peter Burke, TD said the new master’s programme would “help Irish-based companies recruit faster and grow smarter, while providing a top quality education and in-demand skills for our next generation of engineers”.

He added: “It strengthens Ireland’s hand as a place where both Irish and international companies can grow, innovate and hire the talent they need, cementing our reputation as a hub for semiconductor activity and innovation.”

Ireland is home to around 130 companies employing 20,000 people in the semiconductor sector. Last week, I-C3, Ireland’s National Competence Centre in Semiconductors, was unveiled as one of 30 such centres across 27 EU countries.

Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science James Lawless, TD said that the Chips Act aims to double semiconductor production in Europe by 2030 and to encourage upskilling across the industry, and that the Maynooth master’s course would “help ensure a supply of talented, highly skilled graduates who will strengthen Ireland’s competitiveness in the global semiconductor sector”.

Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

If you’re tired of listening to the crackle from the speakers on the back of your TV but aren’t ready for the full subwoofer-boosted suite, I’ve got a good deal for you. The Klipsch Flexus Core 200 is currently marked down by $50 at Amazon, and it’s a great place to start if you’re looking for a soundbar that will give you options down the road.

It has fewer channels built into the sound bar than some of our other favorite picks, notably lacking the side-firing drivers that help with surround effects. That doesn’t keep it from sounding excellent, thanks to its 44-inch wide footprint and 2.25-inch drivers that reach all the way to either end. Our reviewer Ryan Waniata was impressed by the Core 200’s clarity and detail, and in particular called out the very punchy bass response.

While the bar has built-in controls for simple tasks like changing the volume and inputs, you can also use the mobile app to fine tune your audio experience. In addition to the stuff you’d expect, there’s also a three-band equalizer for those who like to fiddle and advanced settings for any extra speakers you add to the setup. With eARC to communicate with your TV, you shouldn’t need to touch the remote or app often anyway.

That’s right, one of the biggest selling points for the Klipsch Flexus Core 200 is the ability to add additional speakers to your setup. Both the Klipsch Flexus Surr 100 bookshelf speakers and Klipsch Flexus Sub 100 connect wirelessly to the Core 200 with a custom dongle, giving you a ton of freedom to stash the extra speakers wherever they’d sound best. If you have your own subwoofer that you like, there’s also an RCA jack on the bar to hook it up. That’s a lot of flexibility for any soundbar, let alone one at this price point.

If you’re ready to get the ball rolling on a proper sound system for your next movie night, you can save $50 on the Flexus Core 200, or meander over to our roundup of the best soundbars we’ve tested to find the best option for you.

KBIS, or the Kitchen Bath Industry Show, is a little bit like CES – however, with a much narrower focus.

KBIS is a launchpad for all the latest and upcoming innovations in kitchen and bathroom technology, from smart fridges, washing machines and more.

I’ve been walking the floors at KBIS 2026 in Florida to find the very best launches, and I have rounded up my favourite tech reveals. Keep reading to see what I am most excited to get my hands on in 2026 and beyond.

GE Profile 27.9 Cu. Ft. Smart 4-Door French-Door Refrigerator with Kitchen Assistant

Ever wanted a fridge that can not only keep track of your shopping list, but also order food for you?

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Well, this smart refrigerator with Kitchen Assistant can do just that. Thanks to the barcode scanner built in the front, just next to the water dispenser, this fridge can track everything you put inside it, logging it all in an app and building handy shopping lists and recipes.

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Apparently, over 4 million products are supported, and when you run out of an item, a partnership with Instacart means you can have a top-up delivered in as little as 30 minutes.

Elsewhere, there’s an 8-inch touch display, voice control and a selection of clever sensors that can auto-dispense water to perfectly fill your bottle while you do something else. Expect to see it hit stores in April, for $4899.

Whirlpool 36-inch True Counter Depth 3-Door/4-Door French Door Refrigerator with Nugget Ice

Nugget ice (those small, chewable balls of ice so common with fast-food outlets) is having a moment right now, with dedicated machines to pump out the stuff at rapid speed increasing in popularity all the time.

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However, if you want to keep your counter free of clutter, Whirlpool has done the smart thing and built a nugget ice dispenser right into its latest fridges.

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To make things even better, the water and ice dispenser has been made taller to accommodate larger bottles, and there’s a traditional ice maker inside for those who prefer cubed ice.

LG Signature Built-in Depth French 4Door

LG’s Signature line continues to include some of the most desirable appliances on the market, and this latest model is packed with tech, from an internal filtered water dispenser, 24-inch control panel and numerous AI modes to keep your food fresher for longer.

For me though, I am still a massive fan of the Big Craft Ice system, which can make those glorious bar-worthy spheres of ice that are ideal for cocktails.

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Midea STRAWash and SENSOR TruDry technology dishwasher

Dishwashers are always getting smarter, but often that’s with connected smarts rather than with the design. Midea is looking to change that by refining the interior of its latest dishwasher to better suit modern homes.

This dishwasher has internal spaces large enough to clean a reusable bottle, and there are dedicated jets to clean inside reusable straws and even those tall tumblers that can be a pain to clean properly. There’s even a dedicated zone for lids and a cycle that gets your dishes fully clean and dry in just one hour.

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Fotile Fully Integrated Range Hood

This is one of the slickest range hoods we’ve ever laid our eyes on, thanks to some seriously futuristic looks and gesture control that lets you open it up and get to work with just a wave of your hand.

When it’s not in use, the hood is fully hidden, thanks to an aircraft-inspired folding system. It also has 48% wider coverage than traditional hoods and 24-hour smart monitoring.

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LG Signature 24-inch Built Under Dishwasher

A dishwasher worthy of the Signature brand. This model is designed to blend into your kitchen, with a handle that slides away when not in use and automatically pops out when you need it. 

It’s quiet (around 38db), has some seriously tasteful lighting inside and numerous features, from Auto Open, Dynamic Heat Dry and QuadWash Pro.

Samsung Bespoke AI 3-Door French Door Refrigerators with Zero Clearance Fit

Samsung’s Bespoke range is home to some of my favourite refrigerators, and this KBIS 2026 launch has the potential to be another winner.

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This model has specially designed hinges and slim door profiles that allow the doors to open fully if there’s minimal space between the refrigerator and any surrounding walls.

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Inside, you’ve got more control over your ice output, including an option for half spheres of ice that join the existing full sphere options. These are ideal for cocktails, as they melt slowly – and look great, too.

On the outside, there’s an extra-tall filtered water dispenser, perfect for use with larger drinks bottles from the likes of Stanley.

Whirlpool Front Load Laundry Tower with FreshFlow Vent System & UV Clean

This tower-style laundry system not only saves space but also introduces a very clever industry-first UV Clean technology. 

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This easily accessible addition – which can be flipped on and off depending on the wash – can help reduce odour-causing bacteria without the traditional need for high temperatures that can damage certain fabrics. There’s smart connectivity too, plus a venting system to keep everything smelling fresh.

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Social media is going the way of alcohol, gambling, and other social sins: Societies are deciding it’s no longer kid stuff. Lawmakers point to compulsive use, exposure to harmful content, and mounting concerns about adolescent mental health. So, many propose to set a minimum age, usually 13 or 16.

In cases when regulators demand real enforcement rather than symbolic rules, platforms run into a basic technical problem. The only way to prove that someone is old enough to use a site is to collect personal data about who they are. And the only way to prove that you checked is to keep the data indefinitely. Age-restriction laws push platforms toward intrusive verification systems that often directly conflict with modern data-privacy law.

This is the age-verification trap. Strong enforcement of age rules undermines data privacy.

How Does Age Enforcement Actually Work?

Most age-restriction laws follow a familiar pattern. They set a minimum age and require platforms to take “reasonable steps” or “effective measures” to prevent underage access. What these laws rarely spell out is how platforms are supposed to tell who is actually over the line. At the technical level, companies have only two tools.

The first is identity-based verification. Companies ask users to upload a government ID, link a digital identity, or provide documents that prove their age. Yet in many jurisdictions, 16-year-olds do not have IDs. In others, IDs exist but are not digital, not widely held, or not trustworthy. Storing copies of identity documents also creates security and misuse risks.

The second option is inference. Platforms try to guess age based on behavior, device signals, or biometric analysis, most commonly facial age estimation from selfies or videos. This avoids formal ID collection, but it replaces certainty with probability and error.

In practice, companies combine both. Self-declared ages are backed by inference systems. When confidence drops, or regulators ask for proof of effort, inference escalates to ID checks. What starts as a light-touch checkpoint turns into layered verification that follows users over time.

What Are Platforms Doing Now?

This pattern is already visible on major platforms.

Meta has deployed facial age estimation on Instagram in multiple markets, using video-selfie checks through third-party partners. When the system flags users as possibly underaged, it prompts them to record a short selfie video. An AI system estimates their age and, if it decides they are under the threshold, restricts or locks the account. Appeals often trigger additional checks, and misclassifications are common.

TikTok has confirmed that it also scans public videos to infer users’ ages. Google and YouTube rely heavily on behavioral signals tied to viewing history and account activity to infer age, then ask for government ID or a credit card when the system is unsure. A credit card functions as a proxy for adulthood, even though it says nothing about who is actually using the account. The Roblox games site, which recently launched a new age-estimate system, is already suffering from users selling child-aged accounts to adult predators seeking entry to age-restricted areas, Wired reports.

For a typical user, age is no longer a one-time declaration. It becomes a recurring test. A new phone, a change in behavior, or a false signal can trigger another check. Passing once does not end the process.

How Do Age-Verification Systems Fail?

These systems fail in predictable ways.

False positives are common. Platforms identify as minors adults with youthful faces, or adults who are sharing family devices, or have otherwise unusual usage. They lock accounts, sometimes for days. False negatives also persist. Teenagers learn quickly how to evade checks by borrowing IDs, cycling accounts, or using VPNs.

The appeal process itself creates new privacy risks. Platforms must store biometric data, ID images, and verification logs long enough to defend their decisions to regulators. So if an adult who is tired of submitting selfies to verify their age finally uploads an ID, the system must now secure that stored ID. Each retained record becomes a potential breach target.

Scale that experience across millions of users, and you bake the privacy risk into how platforms work.

Is Age Verification Compatible With Privacy Law?

This is where emerging age-restriction policy collides with existing privacy law.

Modern data-protection regimes all rest on similar ideas: Collect only what you need, use it only for a defined purpose, and keep it only as long as necessary.

Age enforcement undermines all three.

To prove they are following age-verification rules, platforms must log verification attempts, retain evidence, and monitor users over time. When regulators or courts ask whether a platform took reasonable steps, “We collected less data” is rarely persuasive. For companies, defending themselves against accusations of neglecting to properly verify age supersedes defending themselves against accusations of inappropriate data collection.

It is not an explicit choice by voters or policymakers, but instead a reaction to enforcement pressure and how companies perceive their litigation risk.

Less Developed Countries, Deeper Surveillance

Outside wealthy democracies, the trade-off is even starker.

Brazil’s Statute of Child-rearing and Adolescents (ECA in Portuguese) imposes strong child-protection duties online, while its data-protection law restricts data collection and processing. Now providers operating in Brazil must adopt effective age-verification mechanisms and can no longer rely on self-declaration alone for high-risk services. Yet they also face uneven identity infrastructure and widespread device sharing. To compensate, they rely more heavily on facial estimation and third-party verification vendors.

In Nigeria many users lack formal IDs. Digital service providers fill the gap with behavioral analysis, biometric inference, and offshore verification services, often with limited oversight. Audit logs grow, data flows expand, and the practical ability of users to understand or contest how companies infer their age shrinks accordingly. Where identity systems are weak, companies do not protect privacy. They bypass it.

The paradox is clear. In countries with less administrative capacity, age enforcement often produces more surveillance, not less, because inference fills the void of missing documents.

How Do Enforcement Priorities Change Expectations?

Some policymakers assume that vague standards preserve flexibility. In the U.K., then–Digital Secretary Michelle Donelan, argued in 2023 that requiring certain online safety outcomes without specifying the means would avoid mandating particular technologies. Experience suggests the opposite.

When disputes reach regulators or courts, the question is simple: Can minors still access the platform easily? If the answer is yes, authorities tell companies to do more. Over time, “reasonable steps” become more invasive.

Repeated facial scans, escalating ID checks, and long-term logging become the norm. Platforms that collect less data start to look reckless by comparison. Privacy-preserving designs lose out to defensible ones.

This pattern is familiar, including online sales-tax enforcement. After courts settled that large platforms had an obligation to collect and remit sales taxes, companies began continuous tracking and storage of transaction destinations and customer location signals. That tracking is not abusive, but once enforcement requires proof over time, companies build systems to log, retain, and correlate more data. Age verification is moving the same way. What begins as a one-time check becomes an ongoing evidentiary system, with pressure to monitor, retain, and justify user-level data.

The Choice We Are Avoiding

None of this is an argument against protecting children online. It is an argument against pretending there is no trade-off.

Some observers present privacy-preserving age proofs involving a third party, such as the government, as a solution, but they inherit the same structural flaw: Many users who are legally old enough to use a platform do not have government ID. In countries where the minimum age for social media is lower than the age at which ID is issued, platforms face a choice between excluding lawful users and monitoring everyone. Right now, companies are making that choice quietly, after building systems and normalizing behavior that protects them from the greater legal risks. Age-restriction laws are not just about kids and screens. They are reshaping how identity, privacy, and access work on the Internet for everyone.

The age-verification trap is not a glitch. It is what you get when regulators treat age enforcement as mandatory and privacy as optional.