Major Tech and Gaming Orgs including Stop Killing Games Push Back Against UK's Internet Age Restrictions

Nineteen organizations, including Mozilla, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Stop Killing Games, have signed a joint statement urging the UK government to reconsider its approach to online age restrictions.

The statement comes in response to the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026, which recently passed the final stages of the UK's legislative process on April 29. The Act grants the government new powers to restrict social media use for under-16s and introduces a statutory ban on smartphones in schools.

While the intentions behind the bill may be understandable, the signatories argue that the methods being proposed are far too broad and come at a serious cost to everyday internet users.

The UK government has been moving in this direction for a while now. The Online Safety Act, introduced previously, already requires various online services to verify that their users are over 18.

Now, as part of a national consultation on online harms closing on May 26, ministers are deciding which platforms and features should be locked behind age gates. According to the joint statement, "This approach focuses on restricting young people's access, rather than ensuring services are designed to uphold their rights and interests by default."

The problem, as the organizations point out, is that age restrictions do not only affect young people. Everyone ends up having to prove their age. That is a significant burden placed on both users and service providers alike.

There are also serious concerns about the technology itself. As per the joint statement, "Existing age assurance technologies are either insufficiently accurate, undermine privacy and data security, or are not widely available across populations." The UK's own experience under the Online Safety Act has already demonstrated this. There have even been serious breaches of UK users' government ID data, which shows just how risky these systems can be at scale.

The restrictions being consulted on are broader than many might expect. They potentially cover video games, VPNs, and even static websites.

The organizations are not dismissing the real risks that exist in digital spaces. They acknowledge those concerns directly, stating, "These risks are real and require thoughtful policy interventions that address the root of the issue, not just simplistic policies like access bans." The core argument is that the UK government should be holding tech companies accountable for building safer products, rather than gatekeeping the open web for everyone.

There is also a point raised about young people using the internet to access information they might not feel safe seeking out in person. According to the statement, the internet allows young people to "find information they may not feel safe to access offline, such as about family abuse, politics, or their sexuality." Blanket restrictions risk cutting off those lifelines entirely.

The British government has previously stated that it has no plans to repeal the Online Safety Act, and there is no sign it intends to change course on the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act either.

The full list of organizations that signed the joint statement is as follows:

• Big Brother Watch

• Defend Digital Me

• Electronic Frontier Foundation

• ExpressVPN

• Gamers Voice

• Global Partners Digital

• Index on Censorship

• Internet Society

• IPVanish

• Mozilla

• Mullvad VPN

• NO2ID

• Open Rights Group

• Privacymatters

• Proton

• Stop Killing Games

• Tor Project

• Tuta

• VPN Trust Initiative

Stop Killing Games is an interesting name on this list. Founded by gaming content creator Ross Scott in 2024, the campaign originally focused on the growing problem of games becoming permanently unplayable after publishers shut down their servers. It gathered over 1.29 million verified signatures across EU member states, well above the one million needed to trigger official parliamentary scrutiny. The European Citizens' Initiative was formally submitted in early 2026, with the European Commission given until July 27, 2026, to respond, though a date of June 16 has been set a month prior. The campaign's involvement here shows how gaming advocacy groups are increasingly stepping into broader digital rights conversations.