If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Japan wants social media companies to work out how old their users are and one method floated in a new government proposal would tap the growing data that mobile carriers already hold on their customers. The proposal came from a panel of “experts” convened by Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, which released its draft measures on June 2 with the stated goal of reducing young people’s dependency on social media. The panel stopped short of the blanket under-16 ban Australia brought into force in December 2025, saying social media has become too embedded as a communication tool to wall off by age. Instead, the government would work with platforms and carriers on, per a report by The Japan Times, “methods of age verification based on feasible technologies and systems.” Reaching for carrier records is where the privacy cost hides and Japanese operators already know how old subscribers are because customers verify their identity at signup. Routing that into social media checks would connect the phone account tied to your legal name with the platforms you use, building a verified link where none existed. Identity data collected for one purpose gets repurposed for another and tied to everything you say, read, and consume. Verification today mostly runs on self-reported information, which anyone willing to lie can get around. The Asahi Shimbun reports platforms would be required by law to assess their own services for risk and carry out stricter identity checks. The shift is away from declaring your age toward proving it, and proving it means handing over something you would rather keep. The draft enters public comment before being finalized this summer. Japan joins Australia, Malaysia and Indonesia, which already ban under-16s, plus France, Greece and Denmark. At the end of May, G7 ministers in Paris agreed seven principles calling for age assurance described as privacy-preserving. That label promises more than any age-checking design can deliver. A system that reliably confirms someone’s age has to learn something true about that person, and the more reliable it gets, the more it knows. Support in Japan stays low, with 38% of parents and 28% of Gen Z backing an under-16s ban. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Japan Plans Social Media Age Checks via Carrier Data appeared first on Reclaim The Net.