On Sunday's Q+A, Education Minister Erica Stanford confirmed what the Free Speech Union has been warning about for months: universal age verification is coming to New Zealand. That is the only detail the public has been given
The Department of Internal Affairs is already recruiting a Programme Implementation Director. Procurement is underway. A July 2027 implementation date has been pencilled in. None of this has been before Parliament. None of it has been put to the public. The Minister has promised a June update - but on current form, that looks like a presentation, not a consultation.
"Anonymity online is a precondition of free speech in any democracy," says Jillaine Heather, Chief Executive of the Free Speech Union. "Whistleblowers, abuse survivors, political dissenters, and ordinary New Zealanders who hold unpopular views speak freely because they can do so without first handing their papers to the state. Strip that condition away and public debate is chilled - immediately, and lastingly."
Marketed as a measure to protect children, universal age verification would conscript every adult into a digital identity scheme. Australians are already finding ways around their equivalent regime, in force since December. The United Kingdom's Online Safety Act, sold on the same grounds, is now being turned on encrypted messaging.
The Free Speech Union is calling on the Minister to release the Cabinet papers before her June update, publish the full scope of the wider programme of work, and tell the public what the Department of Internal Affairs is already building in its name.
"The Minister told parents on Sunday that universal age verification is coming, but she will not tell anyone how it will work, who will run it, or what it will cost the privacy and free speech of every adult New Zealander," says Heather. "If the Minister has confidence in this policy, she should be willing to defend it in daylight."
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Human beings cannot flourish unless they are free! We protect, expand, and fight for New Zealanders’ rights to freedom of speech, conscience, and intellectual inquiry. We envision a flourishing New Zealand civil society that values and protects vigorous debate, dissenting ideas, and freedom of speech as cultural cornerstones.