On October 21, Yevgeny Masharov, a member of Russia’s Civic Chamber, put forward a proposal that would require users to verify their age before accessing material rated 18+.

The checks would reportedly use official or financial records — passport information, driver’s licence details or bank data — to confirm a person is an adult.

Authorities point to similar schemes in places like the UK and the US, framing the push as a way to shield minors from harmful online content.

But privacy and digital-rights experts warn that compulsory ID-based gates risk curbing free expression, restricting access to information and creating new security vulnerabilities.

Andrei Svintsov, deputy chair of the State Duma committee on information policy, told Gazeta.ru he expects online anonymity in Russia to vanish within three years, or at most five.

Svintsov described a system in which every internet user would register under a special identifier that verifies age and other access entitlements.

He argued such measures would help eliminate bots and curb the deluge of automatically generated posts on social networks and platforms.

Critics caution that beginning with age checks for adult content could be the first step toward broader surveillance and tighter control of online speech.

Mandatory age checks in western countries sparked fierce pushback — not just over access to content but because people feared handing over sensitive personal data that could be leaked or misused.

Privacy campaigners warned those systems would also give platforms and governments a blunt tool for censorship by labeling a wide range of material as “harmful to minors,” narrowing free expression and information access.

Those same risks become far more severe in Russia, where state control of the internet has steadily intensified since the country’s first child-protection internet law in 2012.

Russian experts note the country has repeatedly used child-safety rhetoric to justify broader restrictions on speech and anonymity, expanding the grounds for blocking sites and tightening surveillance powers.

Plans to classify “adult-only” material go beyond pornography — officials have proposed including vlogs with swearing, footage of violence, and content deemed to promote antisocial behavior — making the carve-outs for minors alarmingly broad.

Sarkis Darbinyan, a Russian cyberlawyer, argues that these measures are part of a longer push to deanonymize online users and close legal gaps that once allowed private or anonymous communication.

In the West, many reacted to age gates by turning to VPNs to preserve privacy; that same workaround is viewed very differently in Russia, where circumvention tools are treated as threats.

Moscow has been cracking down: a March 2024 law criminalized sharing information on how to evade restrictions, and later measures treat using VPNs to reach “extremist” content as an aggravating offense.

Authorities have also poured resources into blocking circumvention — regulators received large budgets this year to fight VPNs and sophisticated traffic-filtering and throttling techniques are increasingly deployed.

The result: an environment where mandatory age verification would likely be another lever to link identity to online activity, reinforcing surveillance and reducing safe avenues for dissent.

Still, observers say Russia’s online repression is already vigorous; an age-check regime would compound existing controls rather than creating them from scratch.

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