The privacy concerns and “ID everyone” are the boring, standard dystopian parts of this, perfectly in line with the government-by-nannying that Canberra types enjoy. The better question is what counts as social media? Is HN social media that under 16yo Australians need to be kept away from?
I'm not sure that there is a proven link between hacker news use and elevated probability of depression and anxiety in children and adolescents.
So I guess it's aimed at sites that are supposed to cause these problems?
From top AU banning official: all [age verification methods] have privacy implications. There was big concern with providing government ID. But there are digital identity providers... This is the point where Gov officials shift from talking about privacy concerns to pretending. In this case, she's predictably offloading responsibility to a 3rd party provider. I will guess the official is minimally aware that leaks ar…
> amendments [...] bolster privacy protections. Platforms would not be allowed to compel users to provide government-issued identity documents including passports or driver's licenses, nor could they demand digital identification through a government system.
So I guess facial recognition it is. Or my personal guess, a government data feed on birth dates.
Any other solution is too stupid to discuss -- I would be stunned if it's possible to use facial recognition to differentiate a 15 y/o from a 16 y/o in anything approaching a reliable way.
It can't work. Teens will just jump to mastodon instances. I can even see it being the case where running an instance become like being able to make fake ids or sell some weed or something, one person will do it and be cool have friends because of that. Parents won't know about it and it won't raise any flags in logs if done well. Not to mention just using a VPN or something.
The system will work just fine. You seem to be under the impression that the purpose of the system is to prevent teenagers from accessing some websites. That is not the purpose of the system, that's just the pretext for implementing it.
From top AU banning official: all [age verification methods] have privacy implications. There was big concern with providing government ID. But there are digital identity providers... This is the point where Gov officials shift from talking about privacy concerns to pretending. In this case, she's predictably offloading responsibility to a 3rd party provider. I will guess the official is minimally aware that leaks ar…
I agree with everything you're saying about how hard the privacy issue is, but would also like to add that the social media companies are incentivized to act like they have no idea how to implement a solution, because they want teens using their apps. The Facebook Files make it abundantly clear that social companies see teen users are their most valuable asset, since the rest of the culture tends to follow where teens go. When the social companies, who are collectively worth tens of trillions of dollars, say they don't know how to implement the law without convoluted, privacy-destroying, digital government IDs I just don't buy it.
As an Australian parent of a 14-year-old, I find social media to be a significant hassle. Yet, I know delivery drivers who are far more technologically proficient than many government leaders. I had expected that, even if the public face was somewhat just a pretty face and a good talker, there would be a knowledgeable team working behind the scenes. However, this ban has convinced me that there isn’t a single informed voice involved in the process.
Homomorphic encryption and trusted third parties. It's what the Australian Privacy Commission, and the CSIRO (government funded (commonwealth) scientific industrial research organisation) said would probably work.
From top AU banning official: all [age verification methods] have privacy implications. There was big concern with providing government ID. But there are digital identity providers... This is the point where Gov officials shift from talking about privacy concerns to pretending. In this case, she's predictably offloading responsibility to a 3rd party provider. I will guess the official is minimally aware that leaks ar…
There is a separate article https://www.npr.org/2024/11/28/g-s1-36142/australia-social-m... linked in the post. It says: > amendments [...] bolster privacy protections. Platforms would not be allowed to compel users to provide government-issued identity documents including passports or driver's licenses, nor could they demand digital identification through a government system. So I guess facial recognition it is. Or…
> Platforms would not be allowed to compel users to provide government-issued identity documents including passports or driver's licenses, nor could they demand digital identification through a government system.
This leaves a lot of room for bad acting. The data collector need not compel. They can have 3 methods available but have 2 be a hot mess of unreliability.
FacRec has unreliability baked in - increasingly so, the further from white ones skin is.
From top AU banning official: all [age verification methods] have privacy implications. There was big concern with providing government ID. But there are digital identity providers... This is the point where Gov officials shift from talking about privacy concerns to pretending. In this case, she's predictably offloading responsibility to a 3rd party provider. I will guess the official is minimally aware that leaks ar…
What I don't get is why not use the fucking ID card?
The government can build a service to verify ones identity and age and social media apps don't have to save IDs.
The whole privacy shit is just weaseling out of responsibility.
The privacy concerns and “ID everyone” are the boring, standard dystopian parts of this, perfectly in line with the government-by-nannying that Canberra types enjoy. The better question is what counts as social media? Is HN social media that under 16yo Australians need to be kept away from?