4 min read
If you have been watching the news lately, the push for online age and identity verification looks terrifying. Tech giants like Meta are spending tens of millions of dollars lobbying to shift liability away from themselves and force age verification directly into your device’s operating system. Critics are rightfully sounding the alarm. To many, these laws look less like child protection and more like a Trojan horse meant to create an infrastructure for the total surveillance of citizens. People are terrified that the golden age of internet pseudonymity is ending, soon to be replaced by a system where every web page, app, and device tracks your identity.
We hear those concerns. We share them. But at Agora, we also hold a controversial stance: We support (voluntary) online identity verification.
There Are Times When It Is Useful
The internet of the 1990s — a wild west of BBS gateways and absolute anonymity — is gone. Today, the web is deeply intertwined with our physical lives and the economy. There are legitimate scenarios where proving a specific attribute about yourself is necessary. Whether it is keeping underage users out of adult-oriented spaces, protecting platforms from sophisticated bot swarms, or creating high-trust digital communities, identity signals have real utility. The problem isn’t the concept of verification; the problem is how it is currently being weaponized by governments and megacorps.
There are plenty of scenarios where you would likely like to be assured that the nameless entity you are interacting with is a) a human; b) the human they are claiming to be. Without such a system interactions are polluted by trolls, foreign adversaries, scammers/cat-fishers and most recently, AI agents.
It Must Be Optional
Identity verification should be a tool you choose to use, not a leash you are forced to wear. There needs to be the option for both anonymity, as there is today, and to engage in a community of verified individuals.
Baking age broadcasting APIs into operating systems, where your device continuously reports your age bracket to every installed app, crosses the line into systemic surveillance. Verification must be an opt-in transaction. If you want to access a gated community or a restricted service, you choose to present a credential. If you want to browse the open web, you remain anonymous.
It Must Be Privacy Respecting
You should never have to hand over a photograph of your passport or a scan of your face just to read a website. Modern cryptography, such as Selective Disclosure and Zero-Knowledge Proofs, allows us to fundamentally change the math of identity. You can prove a statement (e.g., “I am over 18”) without revealing your birthdate, your name, or your underlying government documents. The verification must happen without creating a centralised database of your browsing habits, and without leaking your data to the platforms you visit.
A Non Profit Identity Provider
This brings us to the core of the problem: incentives.
Currently, the companies driving this digital identity surveillance push have massive financial incentives to track, manipulate, and monetise your data. When a for-profit corporation controls the identity layer of the internet, your privacy will always be secondary to “shareholder returns”. That is exactly why Agora is a non-profit.
This is equally problematic when governments try to enforce identity collection both within, and outside, their jurisdiction.
We don’t answer to advertisers, and we aren’t building a databroker empire. By completely removing the profit motive, we can build the infrastructure the open web actually needs: an identity verification service that is cryptographically secure, entirely optional, and fiercely protective of your privacy. We don’t have to choose between a lawless internet and a digital panopticon.
We just have to build a better way.
Choosing to donate to support Agora furthers our goal of becoming a core digital service. Wikipedia, Signal, Mozilla are all essential pillars of the web and are structured as a non-profit. We aim to build the identity building block and bring the human signal back to the web.