OpenAI Secretly Funded Age Verification Advocates Who Want AI Users to Submit Their Government IDs

An advocacy group lobbying state legislatures to require age checks for AI platforms was secretly funded by OpenAI all along, giving the company that stands to benefit most from that policy an undisclosed role in shaping it.

The conflict of interest is significant, but so is the underlying policy ask. Age verification at scale means storing millions of government IDs and biometric scans, and security researchers have documented that concentrating sensitive identity data with a small number of verification vendors creates attractive targets for hackers and government demands. OpenAI has not publicly explained why it funded the campaign through a third party rather than advocating openly.

Should AI platforms be required to verify user ages even if that means collecting your government ID?