France eyes VPN crackdown to enforce social media ban for minors

France is weighing in new measures to restrict minors’ access to social media as the government advances a proposed ban for children under 15, and some officials are already signaling that virtual private networks (VPNs) could be next.

“If this legislation allows us to protect a very large majority of children, we will continue. And VPNs are the next topic on my list,” she said.

A VPN can permit users, including those under 15, to bypass national restrictions by masking their location or identity. VPNs also grew more widespread in the United Kingdom (UK) after the government presented laws requiring age verification to access certain online content.

While VPNs offer significant benefits for online privacy and security, new age-verification rules risk damaging that protection. Systems that ask users to submit sensitive personal data to verify their age run counter to one of the main reasons people use VPNs in the first place.

The proposed social media ban for under-15s is still working its way through the legislative process. Recently, the French National Assembly voted 116–23 in favor of the measure, sending it to the Senate for additional debate.

A single comment from a minister does not mean France will push to ban VPNs for any age group. But Le Hénanff’s remarks point to the direction some leaders would like to take. Critics of her stance warn that well-intentioned protections for children could glidetoward a more authoritarian approach to controlling access to online services.

France’s debate mirrors broader legislative pushes around the world to limit children’s and teenagers’ exposure to social media and other potentially sensitive online content.

In the United States (US), for example, a surge in state-level age-verification proposals, 25 introduced in the last two years, has raised alarms among privacy advocates over how companies collect, store, and secure users’ personal data.

When data breaches at large companies are already all too common, it’s hard to rely on the individual sites and services that suddenly need to build an age verification process, which won’t be an easy target for hackers.