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Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

android-developers.googleblog.com

221–230 of 549 posts

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#221
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a parent issue, the same as if their kid has a secret stash of cocaine or enjoys dancing in traffic. No technical measure can fix stupid.

That's not parents issue. That's why we go after people who sell or give drugs to kids. Is a serious offense, we don't wave our hands and say its parents problem and not drugging kids is a popular policy unlike drug enforcement for adults.

So sure, we go after anybody who gives or sells devices without basic parental controls directly to kids. So you need to be 18 to buy a phone, which we're 90% of the way to anyway with the way credit cards work.

The fundamental point is that the Internet is not a daycare. All of these attempts to put the burden on sites boil down to changing this dynamic, recasting the Internet as if it should be appropriate to use as a daycare. Today it's big tech and porn. Tomorrow it's any writing that the the religious reich dislikes. Monday it's technical sites as they can help kids bypass restrictions. Tuesday it's international sites being blocked at the ISP-level because they don't bother with any of this crap.

We also need to remember the context here, lest we carry water for big tech's continued abuse. The main reason the surveillance industry is reaching for age verification (ie identity verification) is that harm to children is so far the only regulatory cause of action that has been found to stick. Big tech wants this, so they can continue on with business as usual abusing adults' psyche and personal information. Where what we actually need is to stop their abuse for adults as well - eg data privacy, anti-trust regulation to open up their services to competing clients, and at this point probably straight up regulation of purposely-addictive "algorithmic" feeds.

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#222
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not parents issue. That's why we go after people who sell or give drugs to kids. Is a serious offense, we don't wave our hands and say its parents problem and not drugging kids is a popular policy unlike drug enforcement for adults.

Everything is a parents issue. If you are depending on the police to keep your kid from doing drugs, you have failed as a parent. I promise you, your kid can locate drugs better than the cops can arrest low level dealers. You as a parent need to teach your kid how to behave (mostly through things like teaching ethics and morals) not by running a safe prison until your kid is 18. And yes, I am a parent of multiple kid…

I agree, however the problem is that large number of parents can't do that and it becomes a societal issue. That's why we are talking about that, otherwise it would have been private family issue.

Drugs, alcohol, teen pregnancy and now social media has become societal issue as enough parents failed to control their kids actions or development.

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#223
post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but that assumes, that there are people out there, selling smartphones to children at scale. First the price for one is way to large for the financial budget of a child, and second that gets even more price-intensive, after the first one got confiscated by the parent.

There are literally people out there selling smartphones to children at scale. A smartphone these days can be bought for as cheap as a burger because 2nd hand market exist and its not limited to iPhones.

And the child can also go and buy a porn magazin, which is likely to be eventually found by the parent, just like the burner phone you suggest. The former is also going to be cheaper.

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#224

What's hilarious is how Westerners still think they're much different from China or the former Soviet Union anymore.

They are still quite different.

Parroting that mantra is how we got here.

And there's no sign of improvement on the horizon, only the tightening of the noose.

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#225
post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are literally people out there selling smartphones to children at scale. A smartphone these days can be bought for as cheap as a burger because 2nd hand market exist and its not limited to iPhones.

And the child can also go and buy a porn magazin, which is likely to be eventually found by the parent, just like the burner phone you suggest. The former is also going to be cheaper.

Guess what they check before they sell the kid a porn magazine

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#226
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It’s also pretty obvious that saying “parent should take responsibility” is also not working. Just observe the world around you to know it’s a non starter. Then who should? Government, where each implementation strips away rights to privacy - which in some countries, including mine, are a constitutional right? Where it expands powers of government to track everyone's activity online - and remember we're one election…

In principle, it is possible to make a privacy-preserving age check. Site/app asks "≥18?", device generates a UUID specifically for that [app/domain + device], the device passes that UUID to government database along with the "≥18?" question and the ID card info but not the app/domain, government database gives the answer and signs just the UUID and the answer and doesn't include any ID card info. Government doesn't…

This can’t work because it creates a market for people that have an ID that cleared gates to lease/borrow to those that can’t.

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#227
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want the market solving this. If we are going to do age checks it should be based on public key cryptography, be open source, and handled by the government. You verify with the government (or don't since they already know your age), you get some form of cryptographic attestation, present said attestation to websites/apps. I'm not a fan of age verification in the first place, but I am extremely not a fan of ra…

I want the market solving this but I don’t want to give any information to anyone who asks. I want Apple to verify me once, and then others to trust Apple that the device accessing their service is owned by someone over 18. I’ll bet that most people are in the same boat - they trust their device manufacturer with information like their credit card number, but not anyone else. And I think it’s a pragmatic compromise.

How does this work if you use Linux or Graphene OS?

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#228
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In reality, the ones making such check will want extra capabilities 'just in case' as we observe now, or just go for simpler solution because it's cheaper. How does it prevent fingerprinting if you get access to both logs and try to time it? Even more so if you include already present tracking infrastructure, which as a government you can just request data from. It is possible to de-anonymize people based on aggregat…

> How does it prevent fingerprinting if you get access to both logs and try to time it? Even more so if you include already present tracking infrastructure, which as a government you can just request data from. True, but as this problem exists without any ID at all*, I don't see how the addition of the ID cards makes any difference? > It is possible to de-anonymize people based on aggregate data already, and this pro…

> All that psych testing Facebook have used for evil, can also catch bugs and loopholes faster than kids can figure them out

What would be the incentive for meta to deploy that against their own self interests?

> Will it be a constant fight as kids keep finding loopholes? Indeed.

Good thing there are no other issues we as a species face. Let’s burn resources on a sysphian task because what else were we going to do with them…

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's not about age at all. That's just ruse to get a lever to lock people out of their devices if they don't behave.

How would that make sense? If anything, I would imagine that Google's changes are motivated by driving traffic to their Google Play Store, where they make billions in commissions. Once this framework is in place for the Google Play Store, perhaps they can lobby for strict age verification laws, and then tell developers who publish outside of Google Play that they are responsible for compliance themselves.

people on discord get sniped semi regularly by fraudulent child exploitation reports
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