National opens door to digital ID as Labour frets social media crackdown may not go far enough

Summarised by Centrist

National wants an “enduring” system for controlling access to major social media platforms. Labour’s objection is that the proposed crackdown may be too limited.

The Online Safety Bill would require high-risk platforms to take “reasonable steps” to check that users are over 16. National’s listed methods include examining existing account information, facial age estimation, digital ID services and formal identification.

Because platforms cannot identify children without screening their users, adults could also be pulled into the age-verification system. A new regulator within the Department of Internal Affairs would monitor compliance, investigate platforms and enforce the law. Companies could be fined up to 10% of their global revenue.

Education Minister Erica Stanford says the legal obligations would fall on companies rather than children or their parents. But she also describes the legislation as an “enduring framework that can evolve alongside technology”. She has not ruled out adding more platforms later, meaning Parliament would be establishing regulatory machinery with room to expand.

Former ACT leader Rodney Hide describes the bill as a “Trojan horse”, warning it risks an “enduring expansion of regulatory and platform control over speech, anonymity, and the boundaries of acceptable opinion”. 

Labour technology spokesman Reuben Davidson said that a “really big risk” was that a ban did not go far enough. 

ACT and NZ First have refused to support National’s proposal, forcing it to seek votes across Parliament. 

NZ First says an effective ban would ultimately require digital ID or restrictions on VPNs, warning that the policy risks a “Soviet-era outcome” and “totalitarian overreach”.

Stanford’s defence has been that she is taking on powerful technology interests. “They have got bottomless pits of money, and I’m here standing up for our kids,” she said in July.

Labour has now agreed to provide the votes needed to send National’s bill to select committee before the election, although first-reading support does not bind it to later votes. Davidson says the bill needs “a more regulatory approach”, while Hipkins wants an improved version “implemented” by the next government. 

Read more at the NZ Herald and 1News

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