As more people get into the internet, the more inappropriate things get uploaded on the internet.

With 33% of kids having access to all of the internet, it is very easy for them to stumble across some inappropriate things.  Back in 2023, a new law, named the ONLINE SAFETY ACT, was passed in the UK to help protect kids from things that are harmful to them.  However, it took until 2025 to officially put it in place. The U.S and Australia are thinking of having similar laws. This law will affect any social media, messaging apps, dating apps, gaming platforms, etc with many of them using AI to scan faces and IDs. 

All of this sounds fine, however, there are many problems with the online safety act that many people don’t realize. 

For example, AI right now is not the smartest and could get some things wrong. With facial recognition, the AI uses geometric features (eyes, shape of nose)  and converts it into a “faceprint” using digital code. If someone had features similar to a teen or child but are over 18, the AI would deny access to the things they should be able to use. Everybody has unique features after all. And if the face recognition doesn’t work, you would need to use your ID. Your ID is your identity, an easy way to identify you into banks so that you can withdraw money. If anyone else gets hold of your ID, they can also withdraw money from your account. Any type of app where you put any type of information could be data breached. A data breach is when hackers get into a website and expose any type of sensitive information and can do whatever to it. Discord had a data breach on October 7, 2025, and they said that 70,000 IDs were breached. This means that hackers now have 70,000 free bank accounts to withdraw money from. And since it’s the internet, that type of information doesn’t go away easily.

There is also the issue about privacy being lost due to the government being allowed to track all devices because the act allows them to do so. This is a problem because the UK government can track people, see what they’re doing, and then if they see something they don’t like, they will force whatever it was to stop. 

This then causes another problem with free speech, if the UK finds something like a post that someone made that criticizes the government, then because of the Act, the Government can remove the post and punish the person who made the post. There are many videos showing the UK police showing up to arrest people for “offensive posts”.

Now this is only in the UK, however With the US in talks about getting similar laws, it’s important to know what could be massive problems with this upcoming law. The Government doesn’t need to check what children are doing, that’s the parents job. Parents should be the ones who should monitor what their children are up to on the internet. Because if the Government does it, they are going to change it to the way that they can control us to not do anything they don’t like. If we are going to change this, we should make our voices heard.