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Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

ilga.gov

191–200 of 473 posts

Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should an OS demand personal information from its users? It creates an unnecessary risk that the information will be leaked.

Laws exist that dictate what apps are allowed to do depending on the user's age. This means that in order to follow the law they must collect the user's age. If collecting the user's age is a common requirement of apps it makes sense for the operating system to expose an easy way to do that to make app development easier on that platform.

No, it makes sense for an App Store to do that. Or, that HTTP headers are set at the device or network proxy.

User account creation wizards could just create the dot files for the App Store. These weird laws ban OS.

Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

#192
post #53

The law as is written mainly targets social media platforms. For an OS to comply, all it needs to do is provide a field during account creation that records the user's date of birth as supplied by the user. There is no onus on the operator to confirm the veracity of this information, or even record it anywhere other than the local OS install itself. I think we're safe.

And how will you use a library computer?

There's a couple of ways that could go down.

One way is that you log in under a guest account and the guest account requires you to indicate your age. After your session is over, guest account logs out.

Another way is that the library has two sets of computers, ones set for adults, ones set for minors. You need access card to use computer and the librarian will give you the age-appropriate access card.

Another way is computers are set for restrictive (child) account by default. If you need adult access you have to ask librarian to unlock it.

Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

#193
post #46

It's kinda convenient because every service needs to ask you for the age now because they can't serve under 13s in a lot of cases. Having it be a simple API would be a decent convenience, no? If you connect it with a permission system where you can choose whether to provide this information (e.g. >13 as a bool or age as an integer or the birthday as a date) that can't be too bad I guess? I haven't read the whole thin…

We got rid of the IDENT protocol a long time ago because it was stupid.

Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

#194

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?

to me, it's both the slippery slope argument and the lack of real reason other than "protecting minors". operating systems were designed to run the program/programs. You can make applications use this API to determine the user age, or you can just...ask the user in the application itself. I also don't see why this is a requirement rather than an option the same way I don't see why having a Microsoft account is requir…

The way I see it (to strongman the bill's position) is that by mandating it at account creation, an adult/parent can ensure that the age is properly set for a minor/child.

That being said, I don't think this bill was that well thought out as the implication are far reaching (will I need to enter an age when provisioning a VM?).

I mostly see it as a clumsy attempt to provide a mechanism for age-category attestation in a way that is more privacy-friendly than Texas's "upload-your-id" law.

Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we make contractors do age verification on their supplies when building a liquor store or strip club? The OS is a tool used by Meta, just like the utilities and the compute itself. Meta Apps can have age verification but it should be at the point of service, not the supply chain. And even if we were to agree to this, uploading your IDs to an untrusted third party is asking too much.

uploading your IDs to an untrusted third party is asking too much. So have the government do it? They already know who we are and when we were born.

That requires trusting a government with a power that is likely to be abused.

Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

#196
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laws exist that dictate what apps are allowed to do depending on the user's age. This means that in order to follow the law they must collect the user's age. If collecting the user's age is a common requirement of apps it makes sense for the operating system to expose an easy way to do that to make app development easier on that platform.

No, it makes sense for an App Store to do that. Or, that HTTP headers are set at the device or network proxy. User account creation wizards could just create the dot files for the App Store. These weird laws ban OS.

The issue is that software can be installed from outside of the app store on pretty much every OS. Also if you have multiple app stores it would be convenient if they could all get it from the same place.

Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

#197

The most progressive states doing exactly what their constituents elected them to do. I don't understand why everyone is so surprised.

"Progressive states" like Utah, Texas, and Louisiana?

https://le.utah.gov/~2025/bills/static/SB0142.html

https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/89R/billtext/html/SB02420S...

https://www.legis.la.gov/Legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1427667

Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

#198
post #78

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…

> Facebook shouldn't be the ones verifying age

So, they want to profit off children, but do nothing to protect them?

> but there should be a trusted 3rd party service that does that

Gee, if only Facebook would use their incredible might to create this, rather than trying to rob our representative government from underneath us.

> It abso-fucking-lutely should not be at the OS level though

It's not my problem. It shouldn't involve me at all. I don't use social media and I think if you let your kids on there unsupervised you have a screw loose.

Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

#199
post #78

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…

I want to be able to hire a licensed Identity Service Provider that gets all of my verified identity data in an encrypted token and let me register it with the OS, and control what amount of the data I expose to apps, with age verification being one of the lower levels of access.

I pay the company to verify me, I am their customer. They take on the liability of the OS makers and app makers of age verification.

If you have a valid token signed by a licensed IDS that verified your age in your OS, that's all anyone needs to know.

Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uploading your IDs to an untrusted third party is asking too much. So have the government do it? They already know who we are and when we were born.

That requires trusting a government with a power that is likely to be abused.

The power to tell people how old someone is?
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