Meta Pushes Canadian Government to Mandate Digital ID for Online Access
by Frank Bergman
Meta is lobbying the Canadian government to adopt sweeping new regulations that would force mandatory age verification at the app store level, a move critics warn would give Big Tech and government unprecedented control over citizens’ digital identities.
According to newly revealed lobbying efforts, Meta has spent months pressuring Ottawa to include OS-level age-verification requirements in upcoming online safety legislation.
To bolster its campaign, the company paid consulting firm Counsel Public Affairs to poll Canadians on digital safety expectations for teenagers.
The poll found that 83% of parents support requiring app stores to verify a user’s age before allowing downloads.
Meta is now citing those numbers as justification for structural policy changes.
“The Counsel data clearly indicates that parents are seeking consistent, age-appropriate standards,” the company argued, claiming the “most effective way” to achieve that goal is by verifying age directly through the app store.
Meta Canada’s public policy director, Rachel Curran, promoted the approach as “by far the most effective, privacy-protective, efficient way” to determine user age.
But tech experts and civil-liberties advocates say the opposite is true.
Big Tech’s Power Grab?
Embedding age verification inside the operating system would centralize enormous amounts of personal data in the hands of a few corporations, namely Meta, Apple, and Google, while obligating users to identify themselves before accessing basic online tools.
Google itself blasted Meta’s proposal as a self-serving attempt to outsource responsibility.
“Time and time again… you’ve seen them push forward proposals that would have app stores change their practices… without any change by Meta,” said Google government-affairs director Kareem Ghanem.