The European Parliament has voted to push the European Union closer to a mandatory digital identification system for online activity, approving a non-binding resolution that endorses EU-wide age verification rules for social media, video platforms, and AI chatbots.
Though presented as a child protection measure, the text strongly promotes the infrastructure for universal digital ID, including the planned EU Digital Identity Wallet and an age verification app being developed by the European Commission.
Under the proposal, every user would have to re-identify themselves at least once every three months to continue using major platforms. Children under 13 would be banned entirely, and teenagers between 13 and 16 would require parental approval to participate online.
More: The Digital ID and Online Age Verification Agenda
The Parliament also called for prohibitions on design features it describes as addictive or manipulative, such as gambling-like rewards, engagement-based algorithms, and paid promotions by minors.
Companies that fail to comply could be barred from operating within the EU.
The motion, which passed with 483 votes in favor, 92 against, and 86 abstentions, goes further by recommending that executives be held personally accountable for failures to meet digital compliance standards.
It also urges immediate action to tackle “deepfakes, companionship chatbots, AI agents and AI-powered nudity apps (that create non-consensual manipulated images).”
Supporters of the plan link it to growing anxiety about children’s exposure to social media, yet the system it envisions would amount to a vast digital checkpoint network where every online interaction could be tied back to a verified identity.
By binding access to identification, the EU’s digital wallet and age verification tools would dismantle the anonymity that once defined the internet’s open structure.
Users would need to prove who they are not just once, but continuously, through a state-sanctioned mechanism that records and authenticates their presence online.
During the parliamentary debate, Danish lawmaker Christel Schaldemose, who led the proposal, described the current internet environment as an uncontrolled experiment.
“We are in the middle of an experiment, an experiment where American and Chinese tech giants have unlimited access to the attention of our children and young people for hours every single day almost entirely without oversight,” she told Parliament, naming Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and “China’s Communist Party and their tech proxies at TikTok” as participants in that experiment.
She added, “With this report, we finally draw a line. We are saying clearly to the platforms, ‘Your services are not designed for children, and the experiment ends here.’”
The language of protection is persuasive, but the underlying mechanism represents a profound change in the structure of online life.
This normalizes constant identity checks for everyone, gradually eliminating private browsing and anonymous participation. Once linked to digital IDs, a person’s online activity could become inseparable from their legal identity, building a system where speech and access are conditional on verified status.
Framed as a safety initiative, this evolution risks eroding two of the internet’s founding principles: privacy and free expression.
Age verification tied to digital ID would make it nearly impossible to speak, explore, or organize online without leaving a permanent trace. The proposal may mark the start of an internet where every login becomes a checkpoint, every user a data point, and privacy a privilege instead of a right.
