The mouth of the average EU legislator is a "loophole that needs closing".

Looks like it was never about “protect the children”

Politicians should fuck off

The EU used to be more biased towards about rational debate founded on objectivity. The megabucks minorities are slowly exerting influence.

From user qnpnpmqppnp on hacker news

This title seems misleading.

The EP paper appears to be highlighting the existence of a debate regarding VPN.

Relevant quote:

"Some argue that this is a loophole in the legislation that needs closing and call for age verification to be required for VPNs as well. In response, some VPN providers argue that they do not share information with third parties and state that their services are not intended for use by children in the first place. The Children's Commissioner for England has called for VPNs to be restricted to adult use only.

While privacy advocates argue that imposing age-verification requirements on VPNs would pose significant risk to anonymity and date protection, child-safety campaigners claim that their widespread use by minors requires a regulatory response. Pornhub and other large pornography platforms have reportedly lost web traffic following the enforcement of age-verification rules in the UK, while VPN apps have reached the top of download rankings."

Of course I'm not saying the EU won't regulate VPNs, but nowhere in this paper is "the EU" stating that VPNs need closing.

The more I think about it the more I suspect it’s going to be to the benefit of the identity providers that will collect even more data about everyone needing to prove their age. I can’t think of any other group of financial interests over this.

Ok i2p it is, let's see how absurd this shit gets for "protecting the children"