I do not question Turkey’s age-verification rules because I want something to oppose. My concern comes from the government’s record of exercising power over the internet. That record gives me reasons to ask for more than its account of what a new rule is intended to achieve.

Protecting children is a serious objective. It still leaves questions about the powers being created, the people affected, and the ability to challenge mistakes or abuse. I want to know how the restriction is justified and what will limit it in practice. An explanation of the intended benefit only answers part of that.

In the companion technical essay, I ask whether age verification can connect a person to an account. Even a satisfactory answer would leave this political question: what keeps the system within the purpose used to justify it?

The record behind the skepticism

In Ahmet Yıldırım v. Turkey, the European Court of Human Rights examined a blocking order that began with one site accused of insulting Atatürk. At the telecommunications authority’s request, the restriction expanded to all of Google Sites. Yıldırım’s unrelated website became inaccessible. In its 18 December 2012 judgment, the Court found an Article 10 violation. The legal framework did not authorize that whole-domain measure, and the review had not adequately protected against the broader effects. 1

What matters to me is the expansion from a particular target to people who had nothing to do with it. The authority’s account of the technical difficulty did not supply the missing legal safeguards. It is a concrete reason to examine what happens when an implementing body wants a broader restriction than the original problem appears to require.

Wikipedia provides another example. Its entire site was blocked in Turkey in April 2017 following a dispute over particular articles. On 26 December 2019, Turkey’s Constitutional Court found a freedom-of-expression violation. It held that the restriction lacked sufficient justification and was disproportionate. 2 The blocking order was lifted on 15 January 2020. 3

The outcome matters too. In 2022, the European Court of Human Rights accepted that the domestic process had acknowledged the violation and provided sufficient redress, and declared Wikimedia’s application inadmissible. I should not turn that case into a claim that a remedy never worked. 3

But the interval between the restriction and its removal remains relevant to how I judge safeguards. A later decision cannot restore the opportunity to read or speak at an earlier moment. For a rule governing access to everyday communication, how quickly a person can get relief belongs in the assessment from the beginning.

These cases concern different measures from the new age-verification rules. They do not prove that the new system is secretly identifying users, or that every official involved has a concealed intention. They do show why I am reluctant to treat a limited stated purpose as an adequate limit on the power itself.

What would make the safeguards credible

I would start with necessity. What evidence shows that the chosen age checks will address the particular harms being targeted? How much will they reduce those harms? Which less intrusive approaches have been considered, and why were they judged insufficient? The public should be able to examine those answers before a system becomes a condition of ordinary participation.

Proportionality also means accounting for people who cannot complete the process, are assigned the wrong age category, or face a privacy cost that the designers have underestimated. The burden of an error falls on the person whose access is restricted. Calling the goal important does not tell us whether that burden is justified.

Independent oversight needs the ability to inspect the system as it operates. A reviewer should be able to examine data flows and retained records, test the claimed protections, and require problems to be fixed. Findings need enough public detail for others to assess them. If an institution is checking its own assurances, I would want to know who can challenge its conclusion and with what authority.

The regulation does contain an appeal mechanism: Article 10 requires accessible, free challenges with meaningful human review, and provides for notice of further complaint and court routes. 4 That deserves acknowledgment. The practical test is whether people get understandable reasons, decisions soon enough to matter, and effective restoration when an error is found.

I also want clear limits on later changes. Expanding the information collected, adding new uses, or weakening the privacy design should require a public justification and meaningful scrutiny. A system may begin narrowly and acquire more uses over time. Its safeguards need to address that possibility rather than depend on the current operators leaving it alone.

Technical protection and public power

Cryptography can make some abuses harder by removing information that would otherwise be available. That is why I care about the technical design. Legal and institutional constraints remain necessary for decisions about who must use the system, what happens when it fails, and how its scope can change.

My skepticism has a fairly practical consequence. I want the government to demonstrate that the measure is necessary, expose the design to independent examination, and provide remedies that work while the harm can still be limited. Turkey’s record gives me grounds to insist on those conditions. I do not think citizens should have to establish an undisclosed bad intention before asking how a new power will be kept under control.

Footnotes

  1. European Court of Human Rights, Ahmet Yıldırım v. Turkey, application no. 3111/10, judgment 18 December 2012. Court Registry summary. ↩

  2. Turkish Constitutional Court, Wikimedia Foundation Inc. and Others, application no. 2017/22355, judgment 26 December 2019. Official summary. ↩

  3. European Court of Human Rights, Wikimedia Foundation Inc. v. Turkey, application no. 25479/19. Court Registry release, 24 March 2022, including the domestic chronology and decision on admissibility. ↩ ↩2

  4. Regulation on child-specific differentiated services and age verification by social-network providers, published 10 October 2026, Official Gazette no. 33396. Official Ministry of National Education reproduction, especially Articles 7, 10, 12, 13 and Transitional Article 1. ↩