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Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

ilga.gov

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Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

#91

Post by inkysigma »

mgfist wrote: post #78
Slow_Hand wrote: post #7

If I’m not mistaken, Meta has been lobbying heavily for all of these age-verification bills lately. It seems their strategy is to externalize their responsibility to verify age themselves, and thus reduce their exposure to liabilities when child protection acts like COPPA are violated.

It should be externalized to a degree. Facebook shouldn't be the ones verifying age, but there should be a trusted 3rd party service that does that, which just tells facebook "yes this user is old enough to use your service" or "no they're not old enough". It abso-fucking-lutely should not be at the OS level though, for so many reasons. Even the implementation alone would be a nightmare. Do I need to input my ID to u…

Except none of these bills (California or the one in question) as currently written require an ID to actually be verified, merely that the user provide an age. This seems intentional as it's seems to solve the user journey where a parent is able to set a reasonable default by simply setting up an associated account age at account creation. It's effectively just standardizing parental controls.

I think this is a reasonable balance without being invasive as there's now a defined path to do reasonable parenting without being a sysadmin and operators cannot claim ignorance because the user input a random birthday. The information leaked is also fairly minimal so even assuming ads are using that as signal, it doesn't add too many bits to tracking compared to everything else. I think the California bill needs a bit of work to clarify what exactly this applies to (e.g. exclude servers) but I also think this is a reasonable framework to satisfy this debate.

I've seen the argument that this could lead to actual age verification but I think that's a line that's clearly definable and could be fought separately.

Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

#92

Post by pear01 »

Slow_Hand wrote: post #7

If I’m not mistaken, Meta has been lobbying heavily for all of these age-verification bills lately. It seems their strategy is to externalize their responsibility to verify age themselves, and thus reduce their exposure to liabilities when child protection acts like COPPA are violated.

He doesn't want to have to stand up, turn around and apologize to parents on behalf of an asleep at the wheel Congress again.

At some level I don't blame him. It is also a bit strange how in that act alone he showed more accountability than most of the politicians that were questioning him, never mind most executives. I suppose Josh Hawley wants to be liable for personal lawsuits for his acts of Congress too... people cringe at his "robotic" demeanor but I can't remember the last time someone turned and faced people and apologized like this. Most people asked to do the same (even in front of the same body) never do.

https://youtu.be/yUAfRod2xgI

Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

#93

Post by Aunche »

tyre wrote: post #58
Lerc wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How should they do it? Surely they don't have a responsibility to do something that nobody knows how to do? There have been numerous cases in history where governments have attempted to legislate the outcome they want without regard to how that might be done or if it was possible in the first place. Obviously it can never deliver the results they want. It would be like passing a law to say every company must operate…

They could require government ID to sign up and an adult sponsor to certify accounts for kids. Plus a limit on how many accounts an adult can sponsor. It would be a mess, but solve the problem. It’s not that we don’t have the technology, we just don’t want to because the friction would decimate user numbers and engagement; it would be much simpler to regulate (e.g. usage limits on minors); and minors are less monetiz…

> They could require government ID to sign up and an adult sponsor to certify accounts for kids.

Even if they used an open source zero knowledge proof, HN will still immediately dismiss it as an attempt to steal your data. The proposal here and the similar bill that passed in California doesn't require any validation that you enter you age correctly.

Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

#94

Post by anonym29 »

gruez wrote: post #43
anonym29 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blue states: paternalism over your property, liberty for your body Red states: paternalism over your body, liberty for your property

except for during covid, where there was a weird reversal.

I don't even know if that was much of a "reversal".

Blue states were paternalistic over both your property (business and social gathering shutdowns) and your body (masking, social distancing enforcement), while red states (particularly Texas, Florida) were very laissez-faire for both.

What's perplexing about this is that research has generally correlated higher amygdala activity (fear/worry) with political conservatism, and lower amygdala activity with political progressivism, but in this case, the effect seemed almost inverted.

Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

#95

Post by al_borland »

strongpigeon wrote: post #28

People here seem very against this, but I don't really see it. This only require to have a form asking about your age and provide an API to read it, right? Surely I'm missing something? Is the backlash due to fear of a slippery slope?

People lie, so there would need to be some kind of proof provided, right? How much data will one need to give up to use a computer? Where/how is that data stored? What else will it be used for? What happens when it’s hacked? How will test systems or servers work? If I want a computer that isn’t linked to the rest of my ecosystem, can I still do that or will age verification require I login with a cloud account?

There are so many ways for this to go badly or simply be annoying.

I’m a guy in my 40s with no kids. I shouldn’t need to deal with all of this. Let the parents turn on parental controls for their kids; don’t force it on everyone.

If Meta needs to find a way to verify age, then that is also their problem. They are trying to make it the world’s problem. I don’t use any Meta products, so again I would question why I need to care about this… why will it become my problem?

The slippery slope then comes in addition to all of this.

It seems Apple already implemented their age verification API. I got prompted for it when opening the MyChart app a few weeks ago. The API used in that case only sends a Boolean if the user is over 18 or not, this is the best of the bad options. However, they have other APIs to get other data from a digital ID. The user is at the whim of the API the developer chooses to use. They can say no, but then they can’t use the app. I’m not sure how Apple validated my age, as I hadn’t loaded an ID into my wallet, but my Apple account is nearly 18 years old, so that might be good enough? If I were to get a Mac and just want to use a local account, then what happens? Can I not verify my age? Will I be able to use the computer or be locked out of the browser? These are some of the fears I have if they take this too far. Maybe some of them are unfounded, but I guess time will tell.

Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

#96

Post by SoftTalker »

Slow_Hand wrote: post #7

If I’m not mistaken, Meta has been lobbying heavily for all of these age-verification bills lately. It seems their strategy is to externalize their responsibility to verify age themselves, and thus reduce their exposure to liabilities when child protection acts like COPPA are violated.

Don't kid yourself, Meta already knows the age of all its users, at least within the broad categories that this bill defines.

Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

#97

Post by strongpigeon »

bloppe wrote: post #82
strongpigeon wrote: post #28

People here seem very against this, but I don't really see it. This only require to have a form asking about your age and provide an API to read it, right? Surely I'm missing something? Is the backlash due to fear of a slippery slope?

There are basically 2 possibilities with the outcome of this law: It's rather so full of holes as to be meaningless, or it's so invasive as to force open source projects to try to geofence Illinois (which wouldn't be effective either, but might be the kind of compliance theatre we'll see from maintainers worried about liability). Linux distros always have a "root" user. Does that user have to be asked its age before…

> It's rather so full of holes as to be meaningless, or it's so invasive as to force open source projects to try to geofence Illinois.

My guess reading the law as linked is that it's much closer to the former than the latter. That being said, you're right that it does bring a bunch of headache alongside with it for little-to-no benefits.

Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

#98

Post by golbez9 »

jjtheblunt wrote: post #35
spullara wrote: post #2

this is completely insane. we need some kind of constitutional amendment to get rid of all this kind legislation forever.

it's entirely possible such nonsense is all show, and wouldn't be passed, however. i'm from illinois, worked in california, and no longer live in either. from afar, it seems that whatever california bureaucrats propose, after a short delay, gets proposed by their little sibling bureaucrats in illinois.

This is 100% true

Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

#99

Post by hypeatei »

gruez wrote: post #60
hypeatei wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it matter specifically that Meta is doing it? This has long been a goal for intelligence apparatus and big tech: get rid of anonymity online to "fight terrorism" and sell ads respectively. Don't get me wrong, it's good to know but it's not earth shattering information.

>Why does it matter specifically that Meta is doing it? This has long been a goal for intelligence apparatus and big tech: get rid of anonymity online to "fight terrorism" and sell ads respectively. How does getting the OS to do age verification "get rid of anonymity online" or help "sell ads"? Assuming the verification is implemented in a competent way (ie. it's not just providing an id scan for any app to read), it…

You've accepted the overton window shift that age verification is an inevitability and that we need to give up information to the operating system because any other way would violate our privacy! It's naive to see this internationally coordinated effort to "save the children" as anything other than the temperature in the pot being turned up.

> implemented in a competent way (ie. it's not just providing an id scan for any app to read)

What if there are vulnerabilities? You're inherently introducing more attack surface and providing more data than you would without these laws.

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