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

android-developers.googleblog.com

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

#261

Post by mmooss »

RandomGerm4n wrote: post #154

I'm fundamentally opposed to age verification because it usually leads to mandatory account creation no matter how privacy friendly the age verification process itself may be. It's already extremely annoying that, for example, on YouTube, you can no longer watch many videos without an account. Furthermore, the whole thing also reinforces monopolies. Once you've verified your age on one platform, the barrier to switch…

> The only acceptable solution would be for apps and websites to simply include a recommended age. Allowing parents to configure their children’s devices to block services that require users to be older than the specified age or that do not provide an age rating.

Agreed, just make age controls available to parents, optional, and keep the user age data on the local device. External hosts can verify against it in obvious ways. But isn't that what California's law said, that commenters on HN opposed so strongly?

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

#262

Post by kelvinjps10 »

gambiting wrote: post #240
Ajedi32 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're seriously proposing letting governments decide which of their citizens are allowed unrestricted access to the internet? Of all the 3rd parties who could be responsible for this, I trust the government the least . But really the best solution here is no third party. The device owner (e.g. parents) should be responsible for setting the user's age when setting up the device. Anything that tries to take that respo…

>>Of all the 3rd parties who could be responsible for this, I trust the government the least. Really? can you name any 3rd party you'd trust with this more than your own government? Given that you know, the government already has all of this info on us. This isn't a choice between "the government doesn't know how old I am" and "the government has all the info on me". Governments usually already do. They have enough d…

It’s not really about the info but restricting access to people. Imagine they restrict access to social medial to people with different political opinions as the ruling party in the government

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

#263

Post by qurren »

RandomGerm4n wrote: post #154

I'm fundamentally opposed to age verification because it usually leads to mandatory account creation no matter how privacy friendly the age verification process itself may be. It's already extremely annoying that, for example, on YouTube, you can no longer watch many videos without an account. Furthermore, the whole thing also reinforces monopolies. Once you've verified your age on one platform, the barrier to switch…

The part I'm most opposed to is requiring a full KYC, using "verifying age" as an excuse. My Gmail account has been active for >18 years, that should be enough proof.

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

#264

Post by LelouBil »

account42 wrote: post #170
RandomGerm4n wrote: post #154

I'm fundamentally opposed to age verification because it usually leads to mandatory account creation no matter how privacy friendly the age verification process itself may be. It's already extremely annoying that, for example, on YouTube, you can no longer watch many videos without an account. Furthermore, the whole thing also reinforces monopolies. Once you've verified your age on one platform, the barrier to switch…

And instead of an age you could even make the indication about what is potentially objectionable so that parents can choose when to allow their kids to see what - and adults can also choose to avoid certain things.

Force a PEGI-like system for every apps please.

It would be awesome.

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

#265

Post by eli »

izend wrote: post #237
RandomGerm4n wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is quite simple. You just don't verify it. The point isn’t to verify the age but to set the age on the device itself. If the parents set the age on the cell phone or computer, that setting is then used as the basis. The operating systems can be configured so that only the device administrator can change the age. Systemd already has a field for storing the age, which programs can read. If the child doesn’t…

Are you a parent? I have personally used the parental controls on Android, iOS and ChromeOS and to be honest they are terrible. Issues with syncing changes, the terrible UX for parental access control (iOS...), issues around audit/access logs, issues around prompting the parent for access. I am honestly shocked that Apple known for its polished experience hasn't been forced by angry parents. My daughter's school actu…

This is the improved iOS parental controls. When they shipped it (and for years afterward) it simply did not work https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/apples-parental-contr...

It really is surprising given Apple's reputation for UX and safety.

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

#266

Post by fn-mote »

qurren wrote: post #263
RandomGerm4n wrote: post #154

I'm fundamentally opposed to age verification because it usually leads to mandatory account creation no matter how privacy friendly the age verification process itself may be. It's already extremely annoying that, for example, on YouTube, you can no longer watch many videos without an account. Furthermore, the whole thing also reinforces monopolies. Once you've verified your age on one platform, the barrier to switch…

The part I'm most opposed to is requiring a full KYC, using "verifying age" as an excuse. My Gmail account has been active for >18 years, that should be enough proof.

… but how many people really believe that will happen?

Fight together with everyone else, or when stage 2 (“full KYC”) is implemented you won’t have any leverage.

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

#267

Post by Noaidi »

arielcostas wrote: post #254
Noaidi wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> for example, on YouTube, you can no longer watch many videos without an account. I do not like this argument. Does an adult theater let anyone in without an ID? Do movie theaters let kids under 18 into an R rated movie without ID? Why do we think this should be different on the internet? IMHO, they should have Youtube 18+ (Adult book store) where you need an ID and YouTube I think it is evil that YouTube enables ki…

> I do not like this argument. Does an adult theater let anyone in without an ID? Do movie theaters let kids under 18 into an R rated movie without ID? Why do we think this should be different on the internet? I don't like this one either. Does the cinema store the ID (or information extracted from said ID) of every single user visiting, along with what they've watched, on electronic records that can and will eventua…

> On the cinema you show your ID to the person in front of you, they check the birth date, if it's valid (and not an obvious forgery) and if the photo matches the person providing it.

This is something that can be done online as well. Capitalism is controllable.

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

#268

Post by mrguyorama »

1718627440 wrote: post #214
mrtksn wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making the mistake of assuming that every kid has access to identified device and that device is under parent control. You can't make this assumption because that's not true. It might be true for some middle class helicopter parents that have iPhones and time to manage and keep it under strict control but there are non-middle class kids out there who just use whatever device they can get their hands on and the…

How many children, actually have the money to buy themself another smartphone, or get a smartphone gifted by random people? I bet that's very rare.

Walmart has sold android smartphones of okay functionality that poor people depend on for decades.

Like, less than $100. Nowadays they have $20 ones that are locked to pay as you go monthly purchases, which is definitely worse than the old tracfone days but about the same price if you had to top up every month anyway. That's ignoring used phones.

Even poor kids get christmas money sometimes.

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

#269

Post by polipputter »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #109
nxm wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who decides what is harm? An unelected bureaucrat? Now you’re going into censorship area

No, I'd prefer elected representatives to do that, in the same way they've decided on all the other existing harms we legislate for.

And what happens when those representatives decide things like rainbow flags being a crime or so much as mentioning the existence of trans people in front of a kid is equivalent to a sex crime. The US has states pushing legislation to make abortion a crime punishable by the death penalty while also using flock cameras to track people traveling across the country to places it's complete legal to do so. But yeah let's give those people a way to tie every website that woman may view while searching for a safe option now directly linked to her I.D. or that adult searching for gender affirming care is now outed because their ID is linked to the site. So when states like Kansas legislate all trans people's drivers licenses be revoked they can just say okay who in the state has looked at transgender healthcare related websites and have a list of people to go after.

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

#270

Post by mmooss »

perpetuallunch wrote: post #59
K0nserv wrote: 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’m from The Government, and I’m here to help. One not entirely inaccurate definition of government is a loose agglomeration of third parties. Or, less flatteringly, a stupendously large way too loose agglomeration of way too many third parties welding way too much power way too arbitrarily.

Despite that fun trope, in reality democratic government reguarly delivers very well: Traffic safety systems work easily, dependably, economically. The Internet was developed by the government, the web at a government-funded research institution. NASA is the most cutting edge, most adventurous organization in the history of humanity. The US military created GPS for example, and has more globalized operations than any other organization has ever imagined, and from the bottom of the sea to GEO. Diseases are managed and contained, etc.

(Now if the people want to tear apart government, democracy delivers that too.)

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