No more anonymity? Age checks come online.

Richard Errington was clicking to stream a science fiction film from his home in the UK last month when YouTube carded him.

The website states that Mr. Errington, who is over 50 years old, must prove that he is old enough to watch Space Is the Place, a 1974 film starring jazz musician Sun Ra. He had three options: enter his credit card details, upload photo ID like a passport, or skip the video.

“I decided it wasn’t worth the stress,” he said.

In response to growing pressure from activists, parents, and regulators to believe that tech companies haven’t done enough to keep children safe online, companies and governments around the world are putting much of the internet behind tighter digital age controls.

People in Japan are required to provide proof of age to use the Tinder dating app. The popular Roblox game requires players to upload some form of government identification – and a selfie to prove the ID is theirs – if they want access to a voice chat feature. Laws in Germany and France require pornographic websites to check the age of their visitors.

The changes that have accelerated in the last two years could turn one of the Internet’s central characteristics on its head: the ability to remain anonymous. Since the days of dial-up modems and AOL chat rooms, people have been able to traverse large parts of the Internet without revealing personal information. Many people have created an online persona that is completely separate from their offline persona.

But the experience of consuming content and communicating online is becoming less and less like an anonymous public space and more like going to the bank, with measures to prove that you are who you say you are. This month, lawmakers in Washington, which lags other world capitals in regulating tech companies, called for new rules to protect young people after a former Facebook employee said the company knew its products had harmed some teenagers. They repeated those calls Tuesday in a hearing with executives from YouTube, TikTok, and the parent company of Snapchat.

Critics of the age reviews say that in the name of people’s safety, they threaten user privacy, dampen free expression, and harm communities that benefit from online anonymity. Authoritarian governments have used child protection as an argument for restricting online language: China this summer banned websites from classifying celebrities by popularity as part of a larger crackdown on the allegedly harmful effects of celebrity culture on young people .

“Are we going to see more age checks? Of course, ”said Hany Farid, professor of engineering and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, which has called for more child safety measures. “Because the pressure is greater, there is now awareness of how these technologies harm children.”

But, said Mr Farid, regulators and corporations need to proceed with caution. “We don’t want the solution to be more damaging than the problem,” he said.

Many websites have long required that visitors provide their date of birth in order to see content intended for adults only. However, visitors were usually able to do so without proof of age.

This is no longer enough for some regulatory authorities. New guidelines on child protection in the UK say some websites need to take additional steps to verify the ages of their users if the services collect sensitive user data.

An update of the European Union’s rules on video and audio services will require websites to protect minors, which may include screening Age of users. In response to the change, Google said last year that it would ask some users of YouTube, which it owns, for ID or credit card information before they could watch adult-only videos. A Google spokeswoman pointed out one Blog post in August where the company said it is “looking for ways to develop consistent product experiences and user controls for children and teenagers around the world,” as regulators in different countries applied new rules.

Facebook is looking into similar options. The company said in a July blog post that it develops programs to check for signs that users are lying about their age, such as when someone claiming to be 21 receives messages about their quinceanera. But when “we think we need more information, we develop a menu of options for someone to prove their age,” said Pavni Diwanji, the company’s vice president of youth products. Facebook later said one of the options would be to provide identification documents.

Many of the new age verification efforts require users to submit government issued ID or credit card information. But other companies are using or considering other options, such as software that scans a user’s face to estimate the person’s age.

Critics of the reviews fear the requirement will force users to post sensitive information to websites with limited resources to prevent hacking. Outside companies that offer age verification would also be vulnerable.

“Either way, this is still a treasure trove of actionable data,” said Daly Barnett, an employee technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group for online privacy and freedom of expression.

Many companies and governments say they are taking steps to address privacy concerns, such as: The UK Data Protection Agency is overseeing the new Child Protection Code said earlier this month that sites are doing the most aggressive age checks – such as

While choosing which age verification method to use, Roblox, the game company, showed prototypes to 10 teenage gamers, said Chris Aston Chen, a senior product manager for the company.

One possible method required players to take a video call while another checked government databases. Mr. Chen said players tended to use government ID cards, an option they trusted and found convenient. (Roblox Chief Product Officer is a board member of the New York Times Company.)

The technology will also make it easier for Roblox to keep players out who it has banned from the voice chat feature due to inappropriate behavior. If these players log in with a new account again but try to verify their age using the same government document, they will be banned.

“I can imagine that in the next few years there will be a higher level of comfort and expectation to provide almost a kind of personal affirmation on a platform for the common good,” said Mr. Chen.

Some services defy controls. Twitter allows users to enter their date of birth, but does not require it. If users want to view adult content – nudity is rife with the service – they will need to click their way through an alert, but they do not need to prove that they are 18 years of age or older.

“At the heart of Twitter is the belief that there is tremendous value in public conversation by people who are able to speak pseudonymously to the world,” said Nick Pickles, senior director of global public policy strategy at Twitter You Must provide a significant amount of personal data before you can use online services. “

The postponement could be especially troublesome for some people, critics said. Posts related to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are more likely to be mistakenly labeled as “adult” content, even if, for example, it is not overtly sexual, said Ms. Barnett of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Automatic face analysis is also often less accurate for female faces or people with darker skin. And critics fear that strict age controls could make life difficult for people who rely on anonymity online, such as sex workers and political dissidents.

Perhaps no part of the web has more new age verification requirements than pornography sites, which are often at the forefront of technology trends. In addition to Germany and France, governments such as Poland, the Philippines, and Canada have considered proposals for pornography sites to have to check age.

“The Internet was created by adults for adults,” says Julie Inman Grant, who heads the Australian office of the eSafety Commissioner and has developed age verification guidelines. “And I think one of the biggest challenges for us is to develop a system that proves that a child is a child who sits behind a keyboard.”

It is unclear how internet users will react to the increasing number of age checks.

For months, YouTube explained to frustrated users on Twitter that it would require government IDs due to new regulations.

“I’m paying for YouTube music but want me to upload a copy of my ID so my age can be verified before I can play ‘In Bloom’ by Nirvana.” said one user. The user noted that he first bought the track on cassette “when I was about 12 years old, almost 30 years ago”.

“This rule applies to video-sharing platforms in certain countries,” replied YouTube’s customer support account.

Mr Errington from the UK said YouTube asked for a credit card when he tried to watch Space Is the Place. He has no. And he said he was uncomfortable uploading photo ID.

“I wasn’t ready to give this information out,” he said. “So the Sun Ra video remains a mystery.”