Poles online will be verified. The government has a law, I am worried about its implementation

The government wants adult content websites - both global and smaller ones - to implement mandatory, effective and verifiable mechanisms for confirming legal age. So it's not about a box asking "Are you 18?" This is supposed to be a system that will actually prevent access by minors.

The Prime Minister emphasizes that this is about "tools that will allow you to control the digital reality", and not about censorship. But in practice, this means that platforms will have to use technologies that have so far been the domain of banks, telecommunications operators or e-government services.

And this is where the problem begins.

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How to verify age without violating privacy? This is the biggest challenge of the project

If platforms were to store data about who and when visits adult websites, it opens the door to abuse, leaks and privacy violations on a scale that is difficult to imagine. Therefore, many countries began to experiment with the so-called anonymous verification tokens - systems that confirm age of majority but do not reveal the user's identity.

Will Poland follow this path? For now, the government is not providing technical details. All we know is that the verification is to be "effective and secure". And this means that someone - either the state or private companies - will have to create an infrastructure that will reconcile these two worlds.

If the bill passes in its current form, adult services will be obliged to implement new mechanisms. This means costs, changes in system architecture, and in some cases - the need to rebuild the entire operating model.

It is worth remembering that we are talking about an industry that operates globally, often outside the jurisdiction of individual countries. Poland is not a market that determines the fate of the largest platforms. But it is a large enough market that ignoring local law may not be profitable for them.

This raises the question: will global services adapt to Polish requirements or will they simply... block access from Poland? We have already seen both scenarios in other countries.

Will this work? It depends on technology, not politics

The biggest problem is not the idea of protecting children. Almost everyone will agree with this. The problem is execution.

If the age verification system is too invasive, it will violate the privacy of adult users. If it's too gentle, the kids will walk around it in five minutes. If it is too complicated, platforms will not implement it. If it is too expensive, smaller services will disappear from the market.

If the act comes into force, Poland will be among the first countries in Europe to introduce mandatory age verification on such a large scale. This means that the eyes of the entire industry - from technology giants to digital rights organizations - will be on Warsaw. This could be a success if we can create a system that actually protects children without violating the privacy of adults. But it can also fail spectacularly if the project turns out to be technically unfeasible or too easy to work around.

One thing is clear: the topic of age verification will not disappear. This is a global trend that will affect all countries sooner or later. Poland simply decided to enter this discussion with a bang. And we - users, parents, teachers, technology creators - will have to answer a question that is much more difficult than it seems: how to protect children without creating an Internet that is no longer free?