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The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

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Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#451

Post by encrux »

luplex wrote: post #251
julianozen wrote: post #235

There is missing a solution. Give our personal devices have the ability to verify our age and identity securely and store on device like they do our fingerprint or face data. Services that need access only verify it cryptographically. So my iPhone can confirm I’m over 21 for my DoorDash app in the same way it stores my biometric data. The challenge here is the adoption of these encryption services and whether compani…

I think this is what my German electronic ID card does. The card connects to an app on my phone via NFC, a service can cryptographically verify a claim about my age, and no additional info is leaked to the service provider or the government.

I think this is actually the correct way to move forward.

We should be able to verify facts about people on the internet without compromising personal data. Giving platforms the ability to select specific demographics will, in my view, make the web a better place. It doesn’t just let us age restrict certain platforms, but can also make them more authentic. I think it’s really important to be able to know some things to be true about users, simply to avoid foreign election interference via trolling, preventing scams and so much more.

With this, enforcement would also be increasingly easy: Platforms just have to prove that they’re using this method, e.g. via audit.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#452

Post by arn3n »

Parents are competing with multi-trillion dollar companies who have invested untold amounts of cash and resources into making their content addictive. When parents try to help their children, it's an uphill battle -- every platform that has kids on it also tends to have porn, or violence, or other things, as these platform generally have disappointingly ineffective moderation. Most parents turn to age verification because it's the only way they can think of to compete with the likes of Meta or ByteDance, but the issue is that these platforms shouldn't have this content to begin with. Platforms should be smaller -- the same site shouldn't be serving both pornography and my school district's announcement page and my friend's travel pictures. Large platforms are turning their unwillingness to moderate into legal and privacy issues, when in fact it should simply be a matter of "These platforms have adult content, and these ones don't". Then, parents can much more easily ban specific platforms and topics. Right now there's no levers to pull or adjust, and parent s have their hands tied. You can't take kids of Instagram or TikTok -- they will lose their friends. I hate the fact that the "keep up with my extended family" platform is the same as the "brainrot and addiction" one. The platforms need to be small enough that parents actually have choices on what to let in and what not to. Until either platforms are broken up via. antitrust or until the burden of moderation is on the company, we're going to keep getting privacy-infringing solutions.

If you support privacy, you should support antitrust, else we're going to be seeing these same bills again and again and again until parents can effectively protect their children.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#453

Post by Terretta »

Aurornis wrote: post #268
armchairhacker wrote: post #55

Age verification is very hard, because parents will give their children their unlocked account, and children will steal their parents' unlocked account. If that's criminalized (like alcohol), it will happen too often to prosecute (much more frequently than alcohol, which is rarely prosecuted anyways). I don't see a solution that isn't a fundamental culture shift. If there's a fundamental culture shift, there's an eas…

> Age verification is very hard, because parents will give their children their unlocked account, and children will steal their parents' unlocked account More simply: If ID checks are fully anonymous (as many here propose when the topic comes up) then every kid will just have their friends’ older sibling ID verify their account one afternoon. Or they’ll steal their parents’ ID when they’re not looking. Discussions ab…

More simply: If ID checks are fully anonymous (as many here propose when the topic comes up) then every kid will just have their friends’ older sibling ID verify their account one afternoon. Or they’ll steal their parents’ ID when they’re not looking.

Digital ID with binary assertion in the device is an API call that Apple's app store curation can ensure is called on app launch or switch. Just checking on launch or focus resolves that problem. It's no longer the account being verified per se, it's the account and the use.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#454

Post by JohnMakin »

Quarrelsome wrote: post #424
belorn wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a bit confused by that comment. Are parents social responsible to prevent companies from selling alcohol/guns/cigarettes to minors? If a company set up shop in a school and sold those things to minors during school breaks, who has the social responsibility to stop that?

I think the argument is more around it being illegal so as to not be forced into playing "the bad guy". It's hard to prevent a level of entitlement and resentment if those less well parented have full access. If nobody is allowed then there's no parental friction at all. Its unfortunate that the application of this rule is being performed at the software level via ad-hoc age verification as opposed to the device leve…

I'm saying hold parent's accountable for their children's online behavior and for their protection online, not companies (who want to profit off the kids, perverse incentive) or governments (who can barely be trusted to do this even if this was the only goal). For example if your kid starts making revenge CP of their classmates, and the parent could have reasonably mitigated or known about it, I think the parent absolutely should be held responsible.

Don't punish the rest of the web for crappy parenting and crappy incentives by companies/govts.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#455

Post by halls-940 »

Galanwe wrote: post #449

Well there are technical solutions for this: blind signatures. I could generate my own key, have the government blind sign it upon verifying my identity, and then use my key to prove I'm an adult citizen, without anyone (even the signing government) know which key is mine. Any veryfying entity just need to know the government public key and check it signed my key.

I was thinking the same thing. Why don't we just get a key from the government?

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#456

Post by co_king_5 »

reorder9695 wrote: post #436

What's always got me about this is when I was in school I had it absolutely drilled into me that I should never expose personal information online to anyone, I completely saw the logic in that and so heavily limit the personal data I give out. Now we're just expecting people to completely go against that and give away the most personal details possible to companies who cannot prove what they are or are not doing with…

[dead]

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#458

Post by deadbabe »

co_king_5 wrote: post #111
deadbabe wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better to let a hundred people’s “privacy” be violated than to let another child be radicalized or abused or misled by online predation.

[dead]

The information being collected isn’t inherently private. Usage patterns, facial analysis, stylometry, etc.

there is a lot you can do to determine a person’s age without ever having to see a formal ID.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#459

Post by brainwad »

flerchin wrote: post #457

The thing that needs to be age banned, or really just banned, is algorithmic feeds with infinite scroll. Kids (and adults) need to just interact with their friends, and block all the bait.

For adults, I think a legal opt-in-only policy would work well. And require reconsent with every major algorithm change.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#460

Post by subscribed »

triceratops wrote: post #92
forgotaccount3 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a tech-literate person, I'm not 100% against the concept of ID if only because I think people will be more reasonable if they weren't anonymous. This conflicts with my concerns about government crackdowns and the importance of anonymity when discussing topics that cover people who have a monopoly on violence and a tendency to use it. So it's not entirely a black/white discussion to me.

> I think people will be more reasonable if they weren't anonymous. I've seen people post appalling shit on fuckin LinkedIn under their own names. Strong moderation keeps Internet spaces from devolving into cesspools. People themselves have no shame.

Same. Also on Facebook and Nextdoor (with real names and addresses).

Real name moderator is a fallacy.

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