Starting on 27 December this year, Australian citizens will be required to verify their age to gain full access to search engines like Google. Similar systems are underway in the European Union and other regions. The stated pretext is to restrict children’s access to harmful content.

Google and YouTube have already begun using AI to guess users’ ages: emails, clicks, and search history may form the basis of the assessment - yes, even unsent messages. If the digital system were to question your age, you’ll be locked out. Search fields become border checkpoints. To pass, you must show ID cards, credit cards, or perhaps your face in front of a camera. “Papieren, bitte” (Papers, please) in updated form, where the Stasi agent has been replaced by an algorithm in the cloud. In practice, you are not a human being until the opposite has been proven.

The EU Council of Ministers plans to approve Chat Control 2 in October. The stated pretext is to detect material related to child sexual exploitation. The proposal means all communications will be automatically scanned in real time - a violation of Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation”. With Chat Control 2, you are presumed guilty until the opposite has been proven.

The financial system has been increasingly regulated. The stated pretext is to combat organized crime and terrorist financing. However, progress has been virtually nonexistent. In e.g. Sweden, associations and congregations are denied bank accounts. People cannot even transfer money between their own accounts. Your money is not yours until the opposite has been proven.

Five years ago, European citizens’ right to free movement was restricted. The pretext then was public health. In France, people were not allowed to leave their homes without “approved reasons.” The EU’s regulation on digital COVID certificates was introduced in 2021. Without a valid certificate, you were excluded from significant parts of public life. You were deemed contagious until the opposite had been proven.

In parts of Canada, residents are currently not allowed to go into the woods for biking, camping, fishing and so on. The stated pretext is to prevent wildfires. The fine for violating these restrictions is a whopping 25,000 Canadian dollars. One man has already been fined almost 29,000. Nova Scotians are apparently flammable, until the opposite has been proven.

We have shifted from being trusted to being constantly questioned, from speaking and publishing freely to showing our documents - at an ever-greater number of checkpoints, whether virtual or not. Chat Control 2, digital ID systems, pandemic management, and anti-money laundering rules invert the natural legal order. Our rights are made conditional - but rights requiring permission are nothing but privileges.

The presumption of innocence, a fundamental tenet of justice, holds that an individual is deemed innocent until the opposite has been proven. This cornerstone principle, codified in the Magna Carta in 1215, is being eroded year by year.

No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.

Source: Magna Carta, 1215

The new world order with age controls creates yet another perverse inversion. Your human rights are no longer determined by your mere existence, by your flesh and blood. Your identity is no longer self-evident.

Soon, both your rights and identity will be determined by algorithms in a distant server farm. Who truly benefits from this?