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EFF launches Age Verification Hub

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Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#291

Post by fsflover »

MatteoFrigo wrote: post #208
parineum wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So adults are required to own a phone to prove their age? Can I log into an age gated service at a library without a phone?

Another excellent question. The current answer in the EU seems to be "you need a phone". My preferred answer (despite being one of the Google guys who designed the ZKP mechanism) would be that the government sends you some sort of plastic card with a chip that does not tie you to a phone. Still fighting that battle.

I guess owning some computer should be fine as a requirement? It just should not be tied to the US megacorps. A web app perhaps?

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#292

Post by mfost »

spragl wrote: post #278

The push for age verification must be about something else. There are good solutions to this, but they are ignored. Its always about some complex setup leaking information all over the place. It must be either ignorance or indeed about surveillance, as many here think it is. Shameless plug: I wrote about hash chains some time ago. They are a nice and simple solution to age verification. https://spredehagl.com/2025-07…

The reality is that it's probably mostly about incompetence and lazyness. And tight purses of course.

When some country parliament decides to mandate age verification, it's really easy and lazy for them to just say "verify ages and do it reliably!" and stop at that. As a result, the services affected don't really have a choice to go towards those horrible solutions of scaning our faces or IDs or both and all the issues around that.

What should happen rather is "we'll build a system for age verification that is privacy focused and all you sites that are adult only will have to use it or any other system we deem acceptable" But this requires effort on the part of the government doing the law. And money.

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#293

Post by 71bw »

Eisenstein wrote: post #248
kcplate wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you implying that perhaps 15-25 mins worth of porn video total throughout all of someone’s teenage years due to such rare access of the material would have a similar emotional and mental impact as having the ability to see that much daily for years as is possible now? There could have been years between the opportunities we had. I don’t think you conceptualize just how infrequent the opportunity would present its…

I'm not making any claims about mental or emotional impacts, you are. What are they?

For instance [1]. I am speaking out of experience, as a GenZ person who has been first introduced to the entire world of sex and porn at EIGHT years old. I myself feel it has harmed my brain in ways which I'll likely never fully understand.

[1] https://eprints.qut.edu.au/217360/1/__qut.edu.au_Documents_S...

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#294

Post by reorder9695 »

mikeyouse wrote: post #230
reorder9695 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In real life the situation is different. When I buy alcohol, someone looks at my drivers licence, does not make a copy of it, forgets it quickly, and cannot tie it to other information about me. As soon as it's online and it's copies, I can't tell what happens on anyone else's servers. I don't want any company knowing my actual name and location, then that can be tied to more data, which is what Google etc have been…

Not sure if you've bought alcohol lately, but at most large grocers near me, they're scanning licenses now instead of just verifying the birth date - and I'm pretty confident those scans aren't just checking the birthdate and then deleting all record of the interaction..

Not sure where you are but no one has ever done that to me. I usually would go through self checkouts so someone just comes over, takes a quick look at my drivers licence, and puts in their employee id into the machine to authorise it.

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#295

Post by immibis »

edgineer wrote: post #252
zamadatix wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as you (and I as well) don't want age verification to involve discussion about kids' access to content because we're more concerned about the surveillance push riding the popularity of that, repeating "it isn't about kids" loudly 3 times doesn't make the (extremely large) group of people pushing age verification for kids disappear. Telling that larger group their interest just isn't part of the conversation a…

I'm sure those people exist, I just never happen to see anything they write online nor meet any of them in real life.

How about the majority of the recent thread about the Australian social media ban?

BTW the Australian law says it's illegal for a platform to require government ID for age verification.

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#296

Post by immibis »

downrightmike wrote: post #258
zamadatix wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as you (and I as well) don't want age verification to involve discussion about kids' access to content because we're more concerned about the surveillance push riding the popularity of that, repeating "it isn't about kids" loudly 3 times doesn't make the (extremely large) group of people pushing age verification for kids disappear. Telling that larger group their interest just isn't part of the conversation a…

"group of people pushing age verification for kids disappear." Parents need to parent then, but the amount that will are still larger than the people who want mass surveillance because they can't be arsed to raise their kids. If they are too lazy to raise their kids, they don't have the energy to push the nanny state forward.

Parenting is, and always has been, a collective responsibility. We made it illegal to sell alcohol to kids, instead of just complaining that parents weren't teaching them not to drink it.

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#297

Post by immibis »

pksebben wrote: post #127
phyzome wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you aware of any age verification systems that do not have this property? (This includes being robust against law enforcement action, legal or otherwise.)

Like many mention in other comments on this post, it's possible to implement using ZKPs. There are likely other methods that would be effective without compromising privacy. None of them are part of the Age Verification discussion because kids are not the actual point of Age Verification. When I say "if we have to know you're not a kid, we have to know who you are" I'm not stating an actual truth , but the argument a…

You may be confusing the UKOSA (which is about surveillance) with the concept of age verification more generally.

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#299

Post by MrDresden »

edgineer wrote: post #252
zamadatix wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as you (and I as well) don't want age verification to involve discussion about kids' access to content because we're more concerned about the surveillance push riding the popularity of that, repeating "it isn't about kids" loudly 3 times doesn't make the (extremely large) group of people pushing age verification for kids disappear. Telling that larger group their interest just isn't part of the conversation a…

I'm sure those people exist, I just never happen to see anything they write online nor meet any of them in real life.

Write to your legislators/representatives.

Honestly, it is the only thing that you can do, apart from voting and talking to people in your near environment.

Is it a good solution, and always likely to work? No, absolutely not.

But is a hell of a lot better than doing nothing or sharing social media posts, which is frankly as effective as screaming into your pillow at home.

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#300

Post by like_any_other »

jacobgkau wrote: post #184
like_any_other wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Age Verification isn't about Kids or Censorship, It's about Surveillance We know this because, instead of putting easy-to-use parental controls on new devices sold (and making it easy to install on old ones) with good defaults [1], they didn't even try that, and went directly for the most privacy-hostile solution. [1] So lazy parents with whatever censorship the government thinks is appropriate for kids, while invo…

Parental control software has existed for decades. It hasn't worked. Over 70% of teenagers Yes, there were other ways of trying to solve the problem. Governments could've mandated explicit websites (which includes a lot of mainstream social media these days) include the RTA rating tag instead of it being a voluntary thing, which social media companies still would've fought; and governments could've also mandated all…

> has existed

Sorry, but if you would actually read my post, you would notice that I am not proposing that it should merely "exist", but that it should come enabled by default on all new devices.

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