California Opens Public Comment on Online Age Verification ID

California Attorney General Rob Bonta has launched the preliminary phase of rulemaking for Senate Bill 976, the “Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act.”

The legislation mandates that social media companies use “age assurance” systems to determine whether a California user is an adult or a minor.

The Attorney General has until January 1, 2027, to complete and adopt the final regulations.

The California Department of Justice (DOJ) will host a public meeting on November 5, 2025, to gather feedback from residents, experts, and organizations about how these rules should be structured.

The DOJ is seeking public comment on the potential effects of the proposed regulations.

Citizens can send their comments in written form to sb976@doj.ca.gov. Note that any information provided is subject to the Public Records Act. 

SB 976 was introduced to limit the impact of addictive online design features on minors. It requires the Attorney General to create standards for age assurance and parental consent that align with the Act’s stated purpose of child protection.

However, privacy advocates have raised alarms that the “age assurance” requirement could erode online anonymity, forcing individuals to hand over sensitive identification data to access social platforms.

Such systems could expose Californians to new risks of data collection, profiling, and potential misuse of personal information.

Keep reading

Governments Keep Letting AI Make Decisions & It’s Already Going Wrong

Where It’s Already Gone Wrong 

Netherlands’ childcare benefits scandal – 2021 

Automated risk profiling and aggressive enforcement mislabelled thousands of families as fraudsters. Debt payments were incorrectly demanded from genuine cases, the system was shaken, and the political fallout triggered the government’s resignation. 

Denmark’s failed welfare algorithm – 2024 to 2025 

Dozens of fraud detection models monitored benefits claimants. Rights group Amnesty International reported that the algorithms risk mass surveillance and discrimination against marginalised groups. The systems remained in use as scrutiny continued into 2025. 

France’s predictive policing backlash – 2025  

Civil society documented predictive policing deployments and called in May 2025 for an outright ban. The evidence shows hotspot forecasting and risk tools that are opaque and likely to reproduce bias. These systems are trained on historic data which sends officers back to the same neighbourhoods that may already have been over policed, while very little is done to educate the masses on how it works and there’s no credible path to appeal. 

USA expands biometric border checks – 2025  

Facial comparisons run at hundreds of airports, seaports and land borders. Opt outs apparently exist but are confusing to most, and accuracy varies by demographic with transparent figures yet to surface. Human lines reportedly move slower than automated ones, turning the convenience into indirect pressure to adhere to the new technology. 

Australia’s Robodebt fallout and new automation faults – 2023 to 2025 

A Royal Commission found the automated debt scheme unlawful and harmful. In 2025, watchdogs flagged thousands of wrongful JobSeeker cancellations tied to IT glitches in the Target Compliance Framework. Strategies were published and apologies made, yet incentives still rewarded speed over care.  

India’s ongoing biometric failures – 2025  

Biometric failures and outages have blocked rations and benefits for many. Authorities are testing facial recognition to patch fingerprint failures and vice versa, but if one biometric fails and another is layered on top, error can spread across services that depend on the same ID.

Keep reading

Digital ID Black Pill Moment?

For those unclear on what a Black Pill Moment means, I’ll share my take on the definition:

Black Pill Moment: A “Black Pill Moment” is when someone grasps a harsh, pessimistic truth about the world, leading to despair or hopelessness if they let it sink in. It’s a grim realization that things may be beyond repair, hitting like a gut punch.

Red Pill Moment: A “Red Pill Moment” is when someone sees a tough truth about the world, shattering old beliefs but leaving hope that change is possible if enough people act. It’s like waking up to a challenging reality with resolve to fight for better.

Blue Pill Moment: A “blue pill moment” is when someone avoids a harsh truth, choosing the comfort of denial or ignorance, like believing “ignorance is bliss.” Some psychiatrists call SSRIs like Prozac “blue pills” for creating an “I don’t care” mindset, numbing people to reality.

In the 1999 movie, The Matrix, Neo is offered a red pill or a blue pill by Morpheus. The red pill means waking up to the harsh truth of reality, rejecting illusions (like the Matrix’s simulated world), while the blue pill means staying in comfortable ignorance, unaware of the truth.

I usually see myself as red-pilled, believing in tough truths/reality, but holding onto hope for change.

If we are not careful a black pill can can be so earth shattering that it may lead to taking a blue pill!

After reading editorials about Texas’s mandated digital ID for apps, supposedly to protect children, I researched how many states and countries have mandatory or voluntary digital ID systems. (Voluntary is the trojan horse for future mandatory)  What I found opened my eyes to what could be labelled a “black pill moment”—the global push for digital IDs is far advanced, likely past the point of no return, aligning with the UN’s 2030 goal of universal legal identity and enabling a globalist digital currency system that could control access to everything.

In September 2015, all 193 UN Member States adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16.9  aims to provide legal identity, including birth registration, for everyone by 2030. This goal supports a global push for universal digital identity. The World Bank’s Identification for Development (ID4D) Initiative, a key partner, consolidates civil registries and promotes digital ID services. ID2020, tasked with implementing SDG 16.9, works to ensure everyone has a digital identity by 2030. The World Bank, World Economic Forum, and companies like Palantir, have created a global partnership to build a unified digital identity system.

Currently there are approximately 8,300,000,000 people in the world.  According to the World Bank’s ID4D initiative the number of actual people without any “official” proof of identity is only 850 million.  Only 10% of the world’s population do not have a personal digital ID.

Based on the latest global reports, only 12 countries (out of 198 worldwide) still lack any foundational national digital ID system – such as electronic credentials, biometric verification, or programs that could eventually link to the World Bank’s ID4D framework for universal legal identity. In stark contrast, 186 countries already have at least basic digital ID elements in place, paving the way for interoperability with global systems.

I began my research by manually checking each country’s government website, but after the first 30 – all of which had ID4D digital ID systems – I realized the scale of adoption was overwhelming. Not wanting to waste time on the remaining 168, I did something I never imagined- I enlisted Grok to handle the nitty-gritty and time consuming work of scanning those government websites country by  country. Grok confirmed the relentless global march toward total coverage revealing that 186 countries out of 198 have digital ID systems already in place.

The holdouts are often in regions with limited infrastructure or political instability. For example, North Korea is one of the holdouts because they have their own internal digital tracking system that is not set up to be “linked” (“interoperability”) to the ID4D digital ID Globalist World Bank system.

The countries not yet set up with digital ID’s that can be linked to the digital ID World Bank system in the future are: Somalia, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Yemen, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Chad, Eritrea, Tuvalu, Nauru and Oceania. [2] According to the World Bank ID4D website, adoption is accelerating and they expect this list to shrink by 2026.

Keep reading

LORD ASHCROFT: ID card scheme is a classic Starmerite intervention – it’s expensive, intrusive and utterly pointless

Kemi Badenoch‘s skewering of Keir Starmer at Wednesday’s PMQs was a highlight in what has been a relatively good couple of weeks for the Tory leader.

If the Conservatives don’t exactly have a spring in their step, they are at least enjoying a sigh of relief. Their conference produced some policy ideas worth talking about and Badenoch delivered a punchy and humorous speech that stilled the endless chatter about her leadership, at least for a time.

Of course, most people have better things to do than pay attention to party conferences. But in this case, the task was to shore up her position and consolidate the Tories’ diminished base.

My latest polling suggests she succeeded in this crucial (if limited and short-term) objective. The number of Conservatives who would rather see her than Starmer or Nigel Farage as PM has risen sharply, pushing her rating up among voters as a whole.

The bad news is that this has yet to inject any life into her party’s standing overall. Insiders now say she is in a race against time to make that happen before the local elections next May.

In my survey, voters tended to think yet another change at the top would show the Tories had learned nothing about why they lost. But when panic sets in, politics takes on a logic and momentum of its own.

That’s not to say Badenoch is entirely at the mercy of events.

One thing that holds the party back is that the numbers saying it has changed since its defeat has flatlined all year. 

Keep reading

Toronto airport requests approval of ‘digital IDs’ for domestic airport travel

Canadian airport officials asked the federal government to implement a digital ID for domestic travelers as an option in the name of “modernization.”

Currently, domestic travelers are only required to use physical identification for air travel, including a driver’s license, passport, or government-issued ID card.

However, Toronto’s Pearson International Airport recently recommended that Canada’s Secure Air Travel Regulations be amended to allow for “digital ID to be recognized.”

“To modernize and support enhanced passenger experience, we ask that the government endorse system-wide border and screening modernization including immediate regulatory changes,” Pearson representatives told Canada’s House of Commons finance committee in a recent submission.

Airport managers wrote that “Canada should proactively embrace both emerging and proven technologies that have the potential to enhance the passenger experience and improve operational efficiency and promote productivity across the sector.” 

“Key initiatives should include accelerating the adoption of a common digital ID for both domestic and international travel.”

The Canadian Airports Council also told Parliament that a national digital ID program should start with airport travelers, including the introduction of “biometrics.”

The Council asked to “enable digital ID and biometrics in air travel” to allow it to “enable more efficient use of space, reduce pressure on infrastructure and enhance security.”

“At present, Canada is behind our international peers in ensuring travel process security screening, Customs and border procedures and boarding are modern, efficient, simple and biometrically based,” it wrote.

Only non-Canadians are currently mandated to undergo biometric screening as well as fingerprint scans when they enter Canada.

subscribe to our daily headlines US Canada Catholic

To date, Parliamentary committees have shot down requests for a domestic national identification system.

Some nations, such as the United Kingdom, have recently said they will mandate digital ID using the pretext of illegal immigration as the catalyst.

Keep reading

Florida Attorney Sues Roku Over Failure to Implement Age Verification, Privacy Concerns

Florida’s attorney general has filed a lawsuit against Roku, drawing attention to the growing privacy risks tied to smart devices that quietly track user behavior.

The case, brought by Attorney General James Uthmeier under the Florida Digital Bill of Rights, accuses the streaming company of collecting and selling the personal data of children without consent while refusing to take reasonable steps to determine which users are minors.

We obtained a copy of the lawsuit for you here.

The lawsuit portrays Roku as a company that profits from extensive data collection inside homes, including data from children. According to the complaint, Roku “collected, sold and enabled reidentification of sensitive personal data, including viewing habits, voice recordings and other information from children, without authorization or meaningful notice to Florida families.”

It continues, “Roku knows that some of its users are children but has consciously decided not to implement industry-standard user profiles to identify which of its users are children.”

Another passage states, “Roku buries its head in the sand so that it can continue processing and selling children’s valuable personal and sensitive data.”

The growing push for digital ID–based age verification is being framed as a way to protect children online, but privacy advocates warn it would do the opposite.

Keep reading

Texas Is Sued Over Digital ID Age Verification Bill

A major technology association is suing the State of Texas over a new law that threatens both privacy and free expression.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) has filed a federal lawsuit challenging Senate Bill 2420, which is set to take effect on January 1, 2026.

We obtained a copy of the lawsuit for you here.

The group argues that the law forces both app stores and developers to impose invasive ID age checks, obtain parental consent, and label content in state-approved ways that violate the First Amendment.

Under SB 2420, anyone with an app store account would need to complete an age-verification process before downloading or updating applications.

If an app store determines that a user is under 18, that user would be blocked from downloading most apps or making in-app purchases unless a parent gives consent and assumes control of the account.

Minors who cannot link their profiles to a parent or guardian would lose access to app store content entirely.

App developers would also face new rules.

They must classify their apps into multiple age categories and provide written explanations for each rating. Every update, feature addition, or design change would require written notice to the app store.

CCIA says these mandates compel developers to describe their products in ways dictated by the state and pressure companies to collect personal data that users should not have to disclose.

Keep reading

UN, Gates Foundation push for digital ID across 50 nations by 2028

The 50-in-5 campaign to accelerate digital ID, fast payment systems, and data exchanges in 50 countries by 2028 reaches a 30 country milestone.

Launched in November 2023, the 50-in-5 campaign is a joint effort of the United Nations, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and their partners to rollout out at least one component of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) in 50 nations within five years.

DPI is a civic technology stack consisting of three major components: digital ID, fast payment systems, and massive data sharing between public and private entities.

50-in-5 started with 11 first-mover countries, and with the count now at 30 the participating countries include:

Bangladesh, Brazil, Cambodia, Dominican Republic, Estonia, Ethiopia, France, Guatemala, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Lesotho, Malawi, Mexico, Moldova, Nigeria, Norway, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Sri Lanka, South Africa, South Sudan, Somalia, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, Ukraine, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, and Zambia.

The 50-in-5 campaign celebrated its 30-country milestone during a sideline event at the U.N. General Assembly in New York on September 22.

There, government officials, like Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, praised the work of 50-in-5 while the ministers of digital economy from Nigeria and Togo called for an interoperable digital identity system for the entire African continent.

Nigeria’s Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy Bosun Tijani said that each country could build their own digital identity scheme, but that they should all be interoperable with one another – demonstrating both the digital ID and data sharing as good potential use cases for DPI.

Keep reading

Labour’s digital ID card ‘may let people choose their own gender’, MPs are warned

Labour’s controversial digital identification scheme could see gender self-ID introduced by the back door, MPs have been warned.

Experts and women’s rights groups are concerned that the digital cards could allow people to pick their preferred gender instead of recording birth sex – despite Labour’s pledge not to introduce self-ID.

Elderly female NHS patients could be bathed by a biological man with a female ID and sex offenders who change gender after being convicted could use the scheme to mask their identity, they warn.

Professor Alice Sullivan – who carried out a Government-commissioned review of data on sex and gender –called on the Government to commit to using accurate data on biological sex. 

Professor Sullivan, head of research at the University College London Social Research Institute, told the Daily Mail: ‘If data is going to be recorded on an individual it needs to be accurate and data on sex should reflect the person’s actual sex.

‘If it doesn’t, it shouldn’t be recorded at all. That should just be an absolutely basic principle. 

‘The concern is that if data from systems that are not recording accurate data on sex are feeding into this then it will be inaccurate in turn. And so we would need a commitment for that not to be the case.

‘The Government either needs to say this isn’t meant to record people’s sex at all, or they need to ensure it’s only coming from accurate sources.’ 

Keep reading

UK Digital ID: The BritCard Bait and Switch

In my previous article I suggested that the UK’s proposed “mandatory” digital ID, called the BritCard, was a bait and switch psyop. I posited that the arguments presented by Keir Starmer’s purported Labour government, to supposedly justify the BritCard rollout, coupled with the timing of the announcement, the apparent inability to understand public opinion, and the lack of necessity for the BritCard, indicated that there was something amiss with the so-called government’s BritCard proposition.

It seems to me that the purpose of the BritCard gambit is to frame the Overton Window for the public debate about digital ID in the UK. People can accept or reject it, imagining the BritCard represents the totality of digital ID infrastructure. If the population rejects the BritCard they may well do so under the misapprehension they have defeated digital ID in the UK.

Subsequent developments have strengthened my view.

Digital ID is a global policy initiative that governments around the world, including the British government, are following, not leading. It is the United Nation’s (UN’s) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16.9 which promises to “by 2030, provide legal identity for all, including birth registration.”

Even before the ink was officially dry on SDG 16.9, the ID2020 group, tasked with meeting the “identity” sustainability target, outlined what achieving SDG 16.9 would mean in practical terms:

[C]reate technology-driven public-private partnerships to achieve the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goal of providing legal identity for everyone on the planet.

ID2020 further clarified the global policy objective:

By 2030, enabling access to digital identity for every person on the planet.

The objective of SDG 16.9 is to force not just approved “legal identity” but digital ID on every human being on earth. To this end, the UN has already created a nascent global digital ID database called ID4D. The ID4D Global Dataset aim to capture the data of “all people aged 0 and above.”

Run by the World Bank Group—a UN specialised agency—ID4D informs us:

The World Bank Group’s Identification for Development (ID4D) Initiative harnesses global and cross-sectoral knowledge, World Bank financing instruments, and partnerships to help countries realize the transformational potential of identification (ID) systems. [. . .] The aim is to enable all people to exercise their rights and access better services and economic opportunities in line with the Sustainable Development Goals.

At first reading this might not seem so bad. Therefore, it is very important to be clear about what it implies.

Keep reading