Ireland’s Push for Digital ID Is Bad News for Freedom

With voices on both the Left and the Right sounding the alarm about increasing encroachment into the online world, Ireland remains stubbornly attached to its fantasy of censoring the internet. Last week, Media Minister Patrick O’Donovan announced that Ireland was “very close” to introducing a new digital wallet that social-media users could use to verify their age and identity. A pilot scheme will be launched in the next four months. One senior government source said the age-verification plan was “akin to” the smoking ban. 

The plan is to link a digital wallet to the existing MyGovID system. Currently, MyGovID is used only for accessing state services, but this new scheme would mean a uniform way to verify age and identity, rather than sites relying on a patchwork system of third-party providers or on users simply self-declaring their birthdays. Currently, under Irish law, designated video-sharing sites under Irish jurisdiction—including TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and X—have to ensure that minors cannot view age-inappropriate content, like pornography, gore, or extreme violence, with ‘age assurance’ checks in place. But there is not yet any obligation to check ID, bank details, or to implement facial scans, as there is in the UK or France, in order to view certain sensitive content. 

The Irish establishment, however, is keen to follow in the footsteps of these countries with harsher age-verification laws. It has lamented the slow progress of the initiative, as well as the fact that more could not legally be done to restrict internet access. O’Donovan complained about the “regrettably” slow pace of online child-protection measures at the EU level. There is even an appetite to introduce a blanket social-media ban for minors, similar to the one that was rolled out in Australia this week. This was “one of the things that we are holding in reserve,” O’Donovan said. The only thing in the way, it seems, is that it would face too many legal challenges. The attorney-general warned that any ban must be devised alongside the EU, or else be open to lawsuits from individual users and tech companies—many of which have their European headquarters in Ireland. With the Irish EU presidency approaching in July next year, this is likely to be a top priority. 

Thankfully, there is still some opposition to these plans. Campaign group Digital Rights Ireland has voiced concerns that turning MyGovID into a digital wallet could have troubling consequences. A spokesman said, 

This would effectively make MyGovID a general purpose online ‘identity card’. It was originally intended to be used for purposes related to the State, but what is proposed here is that it be used when you use or buy a private sector service, in particular adult services.

Even Taoiseach Micheál Martin remains hesitant and believes that “more debate” is needed. Speaking at the British Irish Council in Wales last Friday, Martin expressed his belief that it could be better for young people to develop a sense of “self confidence and resilience,” rather than outright forbidding them access to large parts of the internet. 

Martin makes a fair point here—and it is one that Australia will surely soon learn. As of Wednesday, it will be against the law for under-16s down under to access social media sites. As far as the Australian political establishment is concerned, there is a near-unanimous consensus on this being a good thing. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has claimed that the measure will literally save lives by preventing children from being cyberbullied and taking their own lives. Presumably, Albanese assumes that there is no way bullying can take place in the analogue world. In any case, social media platforms that don’t stop kids from accessing their sites will face fines of $50million AUD. And seeing as an estimated 80% of Australian eight-to-12-year-olds already manage to evade Facebook’s over-13s rule, these fines seem all but unavoidable.  

Nor is Australia the only nation reaching the blunt instrument of the ban. Across Europe, the same paternalistic impulse is evident, with governments increasingly treating the internet as a public health hazard. The Dutch government has already issued guidance urging parents to keep under-15s off social media, while Greece has pushed the idea of tighter parental-control systems for younger users. And France is leading the way by not only banning social media for children under 15, but also forbidding screentime for toddlers. TVs, tablets, and smartphones are now prohibited in nurseries, hospitals, and childcare settings. 

Of course, it’s hard to make the case that unrestricted internet access is a good thing for a child. There is a growing body of evidence linking heavy or poorly supervised screen exposure—especially in early childhood—to worse outcomes in language development, sleep, attention, and socialisation. Just look at the crisis many countries are facing when it comes to literacy, numeracy, and even behavioural issues, much of which is thought to be worsened by excessive use of smartphones and tablets. 

That being said, there is a world of difference between letting a toddler scroll through TikTok and a 15-year-old using Snapchat to talk to her friends. It is also true that each child is different. One 14-year-old may be perfectly capable of navigating the web, while being mature and confident enough to deal with what he finds there. Another might not be. It should be the role of parents, not the state, to decide what is appropriate for a child. 

Indeed, blanket bans on social media can cause more harm than they prevent. Learning how to use the internet responsibly is a vital skill today, and robbing all children of an opportunity to develop that capacity seems ill-advised. In a world now dominated by AI-generated images and videos and fake news reports, it is important to develop a kind of immune response to digital deception. A child who has been slowly introduced to the concept of social media over the course of their teens will be far better equipped to deal with this than a child who was thrown in at the deep end at 16 years old. 

There is undoubtedly a problem with kids and screentime. But if Ireland, or any country, wants to deal with this sensibly, it needs to empower parents, not shut them out of their children’s upbringing. Banning minors from huge portions of the online world is a misguided, backward approach that robs both children and their parents of agency, infantilising everyone. As we should all know by now, wherever the internet is sanitised for the sake of minors, it never ends there. Sooner or later, that censorship regime is turned on the rest of us, too.