Sometimes you watch a policy unfold and think, “Well, this is going to be a spectacular failure.” The UK’s age verification requirements for adult content sites have delivered exactly that outcome, with users simply abandoning compliant sites for ones that ignore the rules entirely.

The whole thing reads like a case study in how not to regulate the internet. Officials seemed genuinely surprised that people would seek alternatives when faced with handing over personal identification to access legal content. It’s the digital equivalent of being shocked that people found speakeasies during Prohibition.

Philip K. Dick must be rolling in his grave. What started as dystopian science fiction in “Minority Report” has just become official UK government policy, with their announcement about using AI to help police “catch criminals before they strike.” The jokes practically write themselves, except this time, nobody’s laughing.

Reading through the government’s announcement feels like watching a masterclass in technological naivety. They’re promising AI systems that can somehow predict criminal behaviour, but the details are frustratingly vague. Will cameras scan for suspicious body language? Will algorithms flag people carrying kitchen knives home from the shops? The lack of specifics is almost as concerning as the concept itself.

Well, this was inevitable, wasn’t it? Just as the UK rolls out its draconian online age verification requirements, a dating safety app called “Tea” has had its entire verification database leaked. Personal IDs, photos, location data from EXIF files – the whole bloody lot. And the timing couldn’t be more perfect to illustrate exactly why these “papers please” digital policies are such a catastrophically bad idea.

The Tea app, for those who haven’t heard of it, was marketed as a way for people (primarily women) to share information about potential dates – essentially a digital gossip platform with ID verification. Users were required to upload government identification to verify their accounts. Now, thanks to what appears to be amateur-hour security practices from a founder whose impressive qualifications include a six-month HTML course that he’s somehow spun into “Software Engineering, Computer Science” from UC Berkeley, all of that sensitive personal information is floating around the internet.