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The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

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Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#291

Post by wizzwizz4 »

dyauspitr wrote: post #282
JohnMakin wrote: post #261

We'll try everything, it seems, other than holding parents accountable for what their children consume. In the United States, you can get in trouble if you recklessly leave around or provide alcohol/guns/cigarettes for a minor to start using, yet somehow, the same social responsibility seems thrown out the window for parents and the web. Yes, children are clever - I was one once. If you want to actually protect child…

This tired argument again. It doesn’t work. It’s like keeping your kid from buying alcohol but all their friends are allowed to buy it. The whole age demographic has to be locked out of the ecosystem.

Well, yes. If your friends can all go 'round to David's house, where David's parents hand each child a case of beer and send them on their way, any attempt by the other parents to prohibit underage drinking is going to be ineffective. But most parents don't do that. (I've actually never heard of it.) So social solutions involving parent consensus clearly do work here.

"But it's behavioural!" I hear you cry. "What's stopping children from going out, buying a cheap unlocked smartphone / visiting their public library / hacking the parental control system, and going on the internet anyway?" And that's an excellent objection! But, what's stopping children from playing in traffic?

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#292

Post by aleph_minus_one »

Aurornis wrote: post #268
armchairhacker wrote: post #55

Age verification is very hard, because parents will give their children their unlocked account, and children will steal their parents' unlocked account. If that's criminalized (like alcohol), it will happen too often to prosecute (much more frequently than alcohol, which is rarely prosecuted anyways). I don't see a solution that isn't a fundamental culture shift. If there's a fundamental culture shift, there's an eas…

> Age verification is very hard, because parents will give their children their unlocked account, and children will steal their parents' unlocked account More simply: If ID checks are fully anonymous (as many here propose when the topic comes up) then every kid will just have their friends’ older sibling ID verify their account one afternoon. Or they’ll steal their parents’ ID when they’re not looking. Discussions ab…

> If ID checks are fully anonymous (as many here propose when the topic comes up) then every kid will just have their friends’ older sibling ID verify their account one afternoon.

Exactly the same way that kids used in former days to get cigarettes or alcohol: simply ask a friend or a sibling.

By the way: the owners of the "well-known" beverage shops made their own rules, which were in some sense more strict, but in other ways less strict than the laws:

For example some small shop in Germany sold beverages with little alcohol to basically everybody who did not look suspicious, but was insanely strict on selling cigarettes: even if the buyer was sufficiently old (which was in doubt strictly checked), the owner made serious attempts to refuse selling cigarettes if he had the slightest suspicion that the cigarettes were actually bought for some younger person. In other words: if you attempted to buy cigarettes, you were treated like a suspect if the owner knew that you had younger friends (and the owner knew this very well).

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#294

Post by numbsafari »

jmholla wrote: post #286
numbsafari wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except companies provide wholly inadequate safeguards and tools. They are buggy, inconsistent, easily circumvented, and even at time malicious. Consumers should be better able to hold providers accountable, before we start going after parents. The only real solution is to keep children off of the internet and any internet connected device until they are older. The problem there is that everything is done on-line now…

> Except companies provide wholly inadequate safeguards and tools. They are buggy, inconsistent, easily circumvented, and even at time malicious. Consumers should be better able to hold providers accountable, before we start going after parents. We could mandate that companies that market the products actually have to deliver effective solutions.

Cue blog posts about section 230 and how it’s impossible to do hard things and parents should be held accountable not companies, meager fines, captured bureaucrats, libertarians, and on and on…

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#295

Post by armchairhacker »

Aurornis wrote: post #268
armchairhacker wrote: post #55

Age verification is very hard, because parents will give their children their unlocked account, and children will steal their parents' unlocked account. If that's criminalized (like alcohol), it will happen too often to prosecute (much more frequently than alcohol, which is rarely prosecuted anyways). I don't see a solution that isn't a fundamental culture shift. If there's a fundamental culture shift, there's an eas…

> Age verification is very hard, because parents will give their children their unlocked account, and children will steal their parents' unlocked account More simply: If ID checks are fully anonymous (as many here propose when the topic comes up) then every kid will just have their friends’ older sibling ID verify their account one afternoon. Or they’ll steal their parents’ ID when they’re not looking. Discussions ab…

The older sibling should be old enough to know better. Or if they're still a kid, they can have their privileges temporarily revoked.

This problem probably can't be solved entirely technologically, but technology can definitely be a part of solving it. I'm sure it's possible to make parental controls that most kids can't bypass, because companies can make DRM that most adults can't bypass.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#296

Post by rglover »

Imagine an OIDC type solution but for parents might work here.

Basically, kids can sign up for an account triggering a notification to parents. The parent either approves or rejects the sign in. Parents can revoke on demand. See kids login usage to various apps/services. Gets parental restrictions in the login flow without making it a PITA.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#297

Post by dyauspitr »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #291
dyauspitr wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This tired argument again. It doesn’t work. It’s like keeping your kid from buying alcohol but all their friends are allowed to buy it. The whole age demographic has to be locked out of the ecosystem.

Well, yes. If your friends can all go 'round to David's house, where David's parents hand each child a case of beer and send them on their way, any attempt by the other parents to prohibit underage drinking is going to be ineffective. But most parents don't do that. (I've actually never heard of it.) So social solutions involving parent consensus clearly do work here. "But it's behavioural!" I hear you cry. "What's s…

Yeah but it’s illegal for the parents to give the other kids beer with serious criminal repercussions. That’s why most people make sure it doesn’t happen, not just some social sense of reponsibility. You would need something similar for smartphones/social media.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#298

Post by Aurornis »

armchairhacker wrote: post #295
Aurornis wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Age verification is very hard, because parents will give their children their unlocked account, and children will steal their parents' unlocked account More simply: If ID checks are fully anonymous (as many here propose when the topic comes up) then every kid will just have their friends’ older sibling ID verify their account one afternoon. Or they’ll steal their parents’ ID when they’re not looking. Discussions ab…

The older sibling should be old enough to know better. Or if they're still a kid, they can have their privileges temporarily revoked. This problem probably can't be solved entirely technologically, but technology can definitely be a part of solving it. I'm sure it's possible to make parental controls that most kids can't bypass, because companies can make DRM that most adults can't bypass.

> The older sibling should be old enough to know better.

This is exactly what I meant by my above comment: It’s like the pro-ID check commenters have become completely disconnected from how young people work.

Someone’s 18 year old sibling isn’t going to be stopped by “should know better”. They probably disagree with the law on principal and think it’s dumb, so they’re just helping out.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#299

Post by stahorn »

enjoykaz wrote: post #36

Most of this debate makes more sense if the actual goal is liability reduction, not child safety. If it were genuinely about protecting kids, you'd regulate infinite scroll and algorithmic engagement optimization, not who can log in.

I think this would be good for everybody, not just kids. It doesn't even have to be complicated: Just that after a certain amount of time scrolling/watching, put in a message asking if it's maybe time to stop with some information about how these algorithms try to keep you for as long as possible. Maybe a link to a government page with more information.

It doesn't have to be perfect and there will of course be easy workarounds to hid the warnings for people that want. The goal is to improve the situation though, not solve it perfectly. Like putting information about the dangers of smoking on packages of smokes; it doesn't stop people from smoking but it does make the danger very easy to learn.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#300

Post by Attrecomet »

DeathArrow wrote: post #107

30 years of internet were possible with relative freedom, without spying and surveillance. All of the sudden it's not possible. Governments recycle "Think of the children" mantra and they are again after terrorists and bad guys.

>Governments recycle "Think of the children" mantra and they are again after terrorists and bad guys.

nope, they are going after dissenters, not bad guys. It's how it always ends up.

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