Electronic Frontiers Australia joins internet control fight

Electronic Frontiers Australia has joined the Stop Killing the Internet coalition, which is launching with 19 organisations across several regions.

The coalition brings together digital rights, privacy and child safety organisations from the UK, Europe, India, Australia and North America. It is campaigning against internet control measures such as age gating, identity verification, bans, scanning, curfews, access restrictions, gaming restrictions, platform controls and device-level systems.

Electronic Frontiers Australia, a digital rights and online freedoms advocacy group, joined as governments in several countries consider or introduce rules that would restrict access to online services and require users to verify their age or identity.

The campaign says online harm is a serious issue, but argues policy responses should not erode privacy, anonymity or broader civil liberties. It is calling for what it describes as a better internet built around safety, platform accountability, safer design, enforcement, education, support, access and democratic scrutiny.

Policy debate

The launch adds an Australian voice to a wider international dispute over how to regulate the internet, particularly for children and young people. Policymakers in several markets have considered tougher measures for social media, online gaming and other digital platforms, while critics warn that mandatory age checks and similar systems could create new risks by requiring the collection of more personal data.

The coalition's stated aims include building a cross-border movement, coordinating opposition to internet control measures, and connecting legal networks, political groups, unions, creators, technologists and community organisations. It also wants to support existing groups working on human rights, privacy, access and online freedom in their own countries.

John Pane, chair of Electronic Frontiers Australia, set out the organisation's position in remarks issued alongside the launch.

"We are joining Stop Killing the Internet because the internet must remain open, private, free, democratic and shaped by communities. Online harm is real, but people should not be forced to choose between safety and their human or digital rights. We need better regulatory solutions that protect people without building systems of surveillance, personal data extraction, exclusion or control. At the end of the day we are citizens not suspects. The internet was originally based on that simple philosophy and promise," Pane said.

His comments focused on the tension between online safety measures and rights protections. The coalition is positioning itself against policy approaches that rely on broad monitoring, identity checks or biometric collection.

"We're proud to be part of a movement of technology, human rights, privacy, child safety and digital rights experts that opposes further entrenching digital infrastructure that reduces essential online anonymity and turns the internet into a place of normalised user surveillance and data extraction. We all want children and adults to be safe online, but recent age gating and identity verification regulations in Australia and around the world create new safety, cyber and privacy risks for young people and entire adult populations alike," Pane said.

Global pushback

The coalition's creation reflects a broader international pattern of civil society groups responding to stricter digital regulation with coordinated campaigns. In this case, the emphasis is not on rejecting online safety policy outright, but on challenging measures members believe shift responsibility away from platforms and onto users through monitoring and access controls.

Supporters of age assurance and verification laws argue they can limit children's exposure to harmful content and improve compliance by online platforms. Opponents, including members of this coalition, say such systems can be intrusive, difficult to implement safely and open to misuse if they require centralised data collection or identity-linked access to services.

Pane argued governments were pursuing the wrong target.

"Instead of tackling the genuine root causes of platform incentives, addictive design, weak privacy laws and enforcement, abuse, and the design choices of big tech, governments are blindly rushing toward easily implementable but logically flawed laws. These include curfews, bans, identity checks, unnecessary biometric collection and device-level control. That is not a better internet - it is a digital cage, a panopticon," Pane said.

The coalition says it will advocate non-violent political action and a universal human rights framework in its work. Its membership spans organisations and networks rather than a single industry sector, underscoring how internet governance debates now cut across privacy, child safety, digital rights, politics and technology policy.

For Electronic Frontiers Australia, the move places the organisation within a larger international bloc seeking to influence a fast-moving regulatory debate over whether online safety should be pursued through tighter identity controls or through platform accountability and service design. Its position is clear: "At the end of the day we are citizens not suspects. The internet was originally based on that simple philosophy and promise."