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Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

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Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#41

Post by burnished »

baby_souffle wrote: post #16
bobthepanda wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it would be less terrible if there were some simple, Apple ID-like way to simply get redirected to a govt website, put in your driver's license, and the website only gets a token back that says "yes over age/no underage". The data already exists, it's what bars use to scan IDs with handheld readers IIRC.

> The data already exists, it's what bars use to scan IDs with handheld readers IIRC. Sorta, yeah. But the reason that works is because there's a human guarding the door that can assert that the hand presenting the ID is attached to a face that looks just like the one on the ID. Otherwise a very smart 17 year old would just get their hands on the UUID or whatever for literally any ID that belongs to somebody that's 1…

You're implying smart 17 year olds don't make it into bars.

You rarely need anything approaching %100 compliance in order to have an effective policy, so if anything you're advocating for its effectiveness when you suggest the only people that would be in violation are the rare precocious kid.

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#42

Post by natebc »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #33
fortran77 wrote: post #31

Parents can choose to restrict their kids internet access. That's the best way of handling this.

The Internet is so ubiquitous and intertwined in daily life that that's impossible and you know it.

And "porn" (or anything you might want your children not to see?) is also ubiquitous and so intertwined with the internet that it's impossible to block ... and you also know it.

Responsibility really is the only fix here. I know we love technical solutions to problems but either porn is illegal for everyone or it isn't.

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#43

Post by TylerE »

cls59 wrote: post #8
dinkblam wrote: post #3

age verification should be backed into the browser and not into websites. parents should be able to access a (password protected) setting in any browser that can exclude some types of websites (like porn). governments should be free to go after any website not respecting that setting. but forcing the age-verification onto websites is just moronic.

And then kinds just learn how to download and run an open-source browser produced outside of the country that does not implement the setting on the client side.

Or just uses any of a gazillion proxies that strips the "I"m under 18" bit.

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#44

Post by stvltvs »

michaelmior wrote: post #29
baby_souffle wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but forcing the age-verification onto websites is just moronic. Agree. > parents should be able to access a (password protected) setting in any browser that can exclude some types of websites (like porn). How would this work? Who's going to set up the taxonomy / classification tree for every domain/site on the internet just so a guardian can say "yes to drugs, no to porn, no to news, no to weapons..."? Or if that's…

> How would this work? Who's going to set up the taxonomy / classification tree for every domain/site on the internet just so a guardian can say "yes to drugs, no to porn, no to news, no to weapons..."? This isn't really an answer, but the same problem exists with current age verification laws. I think the main difference with traditional parental control software is that the burden would be on the site maintainer to…

Have browsers default block anything that doesn't label their content (allow this setting to be disabled and locked down in parental controls), then hold websites liable for willfully or negligently mislabeling. Exceptions for good faith efforts to label correctly. Maybe a special label for user generated content that holds companies a bit less liable for it.

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#45

Post by mrweasel »

bobthepanda wrote: post #6
dinkblam wrote: post #3

age verification should be backed into the browser and not into websites. parents should be able to access a (password protected) setting in any browser that can exclude some types of websites (like porn). governments should be free to go after any website not respecting that setting. but forcing the age-verification onto websites is just moronic.

it would be less terrible if there were some simple, Apple ID-like way to simply get redirected to a govt website, put in your driver's license, and the website only gets a token back that says "yes over age/no underage". The data already exists, it's what bars use to scan IDs with handheld readers IIRC.

Countries like Denmark already have this. It's called MitID, and it a online government run sign in solutions used by banks, government institutions, online marketplace as so on. I believe it already contains an age "claim", so you can get just the age of the person logging in and nothing else. It's built on OAuth/OAuth2 I think, so it should be fairly simple to add the age information if it's not already there.

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#46

Post by JumpCrisscross »

simion314 wrote: post #23
baby_souffle wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but forcing the age-verification onto websites is just moronic. Agree. > parents should be able to access a (password protected) setting in any browser that can exclude some types of websites (like porn). How would this work? Who's going to set up the taxonomy / classification tree for every domain/site on the internet just so a guardian can say "yes to drugs, no to porn, no to news, no to weapons..."? Or if that's…

>How would this work? Pornhub knows they do not want to have trouble so they will respect the browser setting and not serve minors. There could be an institution that can receive complains about websites not using this API and those wbsites can be blocked from the country and fined if possible until they implement the API. We need all mobile and desktop OSes to make it easy for parents to setup accounts for their chi…

> We need all mobile and desktop OSes to make it easy for parents to setup accounts for their children

How about don’t give your children devices until they’re old enough for them. The kids of the rich are already mostly device free. Attention spans and eye contact shouldn’t be a privilege.

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#49

Post by readthenotes1 »

baby_souffle wrote: post #12
dinkblam wrote: post #3

age verification should be backed into the browser and not into websites. parents should be able to access a (password protected) setting in any browser that can exclude some types of websites (like porn). governments should be free to go after any website not respecting that setting. but forcing the age-verification onto websites is just moronic.

> but forcing the age-verification onto websites is just moronic. Agree. > parents should be able to access a (password protected) setting in any browser that can exclude some types of websites (like porn). How would this work? Who's going to set up the taxonomy / classification tree for every domain/site on the internet just so a guardian can say "yes to drugs, no to porn, no to news, no to weapons..."? Or if that's…

I'd say the real issue is that it's difficult to outsource parenting to government agencies without some collateral damage

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#50

Post by evil-olive »

valicord wrote: post #11

Haven't checked the others, but at least for the skin cream bill, the text explicitly lists "a date of birth entry or checkbox verifying age system" as sufficient, so the outrage about privacy seems overblown. Of course this raises questions as to what is the point of requiring verification that doesn't actually verify anything, but that's an entirely separate problem.

> Haven't checked the others, but at least for the skin cream bill

if you did check the other two, you'd notice that they're much more restrictive.

from the NY bill, apologies for the all-caps but it's in the original [0]:

> "IDENTITY VERIFICATION" SHALL MEAN THE USE OF AN ON-DEMAND SELF-PHOTOGRAPH TO VERIFY THE OWNERSHIP OF A PERSON'S GOVERNMENT-ISSUED IDENTIFICATION;

> "LICENSE VERIFICATION" SHALL MEAN THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY TO VERIFY A PERSON'S GOVERNMENT-ISSUED IDENTIFICATION;

and the one in WA [1]:

> For the purposes of this section, proof of legal age includes any of the following officially issued identification that shows the purchaser's age and bears the purchaser's signature and photograph:

0: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/A3323

1 (PDF): https://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2025-26/Pdf/Bills/Se...

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