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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

#351

Post by 2duct »

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…

A monitoring solution might have worked for my case if my parents had monitored my Internet history, if they always made sure to check in on what I thought/felt from what I watched and made sure I felt secure in relying on them to back me up in the worst cases.

But I didn't have emotionally mature parents, and I'm sure so many children growing up now don't either. They're going to read arguments like these and say they're already doing enough. Maybe they truly believe they are, even if they're mistaken. Or maybe they won't read arguments like these at all. Parenting methods are diverse but smartphones are ubiquitous.

So yes, I agree that parents need to be held accountable, but I'm torn on if the legal avenue is feasible compared to the cultural one. Children also need more social support if they can't rely on their parents like in my case, or tech is going to eat them alive. Social solutions/public works are kind of boring compared to technology solutions, but society has been around longer than smartphones.

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

#352

Post by kmijyiyxfbklao »

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.

>Or if they're still a kid, they can have their privileges temporarily revoked.

Since people are already talking about using the law instead of parenting this needs clarification. Are the parents the one that would revoke their privileges or the government?

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

#353

Post by quotemstr »

jonstaab wrote: post #110

Why is no one talking about using zero knowledge proofs for solving this? Instead of every platform verifying all its users itself (and storing PII on its own servers), a small number of providers could expose an API which provides proof of verification. I'm not sure if some kind of machine vision algorithm could be used in combination with zero-knowledge technology to prevent even that party from storing original do…

Technologists engage in an understandable, but ultimately harmful behavior: when they don't want outcome X, they deny that the technology T(X) works. Consider key escrow, DRM, and durable watermarking alongside age verification. They've all been called cryptographically impossible, but they're not. It's just socially obligatory to pretend they can't be done. And what happens when you create an environment in which the best are under a social taboo against working on certain technologies? Do you think that these technologies stop existing?

LOL.

Of course these technologies keep existing, and you end up with the worst, most wretched people implementing them, and we're all worse off. Concretely, few people are working on ZKPs for age verification because the hive mind of "good people" who know what ZKPs are make working on age verification social anathema.

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

#354

Post by scythe »

It's crazy to me that we want to force age verification on every service across the Internet before we ban phones in school. I could understand being in favor of both, or neither, but implementing the policy that impacts everybody's privacy before the one that specifically applies within government-run institutions is just so disappointingly backwards it's tempting to consider conspiracy-like explanations.

The advantage, I think, of age verification by private companies over cellphone bans in public schools is that cellphone bans appear as a line-item on the government balance sheet, whereas the costs of age verification are diffuse and difficult to calculate. It's actually quite common for governments to prefer imposing costs in ways that make it easier for the legislators to throw up their hands and whistle innocently about why everything just got more expensive and difficult.

And the argument over age verification for merely viewing websites, which is technically difficult and invasive, muddles the waters over the question of age verification for social media profiles, where underage users are more likely to get caught and banned by simple observation. The latter system has already existed for decades -- I remember kids getting banned for admitting they were under 13 on videogame forums in the '00s all the time. It seems like technology has caused people to believe that the law has to be perfectly enforceable in order to be any good, but that isn't historically how the law has worked -- it is possible for most crimes to go unsolved and yet most criminals get caught. If we are going to preserve individual privacy and due process, we need to be willing to design imperfect systems.

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

#355

Post by m4rtink »

scotty79 wrote: post #195
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…

Prove of adulthood should be provided by the bank after logging into a bank account. I'm sure parents just would let their bank details be stolen and such. Of course no personal details should be provided to the site that requests age confirmation. Just "barer of this token" is an adult.

The "Bank identity" system in Czech Republic (and likely other countries) can be used to log into to various government services. The idea is that you already authenticated to the bank when getting the account, so they can be sure it is really sou when you log in - so why not make it possible for you to log in to other services as well if you want to ?

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

#356

Post by jmye »

Salgat wrote: post #318
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 only works if I ban my child from having any friends since they all have unlimited mobile access to the internet.

Sorry, I know it's a hard line for parents to tread and it's really easy to criticize parenting decisions other people are making, but the "everyone else is doing it so I have to" always seems as lazy to me today, as it probably did to my parents when I said it to them as a teenager.

Is it more important to prevent your son from being weaponized and turned into a little ball of hate and anger, and your daughter from spending her teen years depressed and encouraged to develop eating disorders, or to make sure they can binge the same influencers as their "friends"?

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

#357

Post by luxuryballs »

Salgat wrote: post #318
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 only works if I ban my child from having any friends since they all have unlimited mobile access to the internet.

this is the biggest problem, so many parents are head-in-the-sand when it comes to things that can damage a child’s mind like screen time, yet no matter how much you protect them if it’s not a shared effort it all goes out the window, then the kid becomes incentivized to spend more time with friends just for the access, and can develop a sense that maybe mom and dad are just wrong because why aren’t so-and-so’s parents so strict?

because their parents didn’t read the research or don’t care about the opportunity cost because it can’t be that big of a deal or it would not be allowed or legal right? at least not until their kid gets into a jam or shows behavioral issues, but even then they don’t evaluate, they often just fall prey to the next monthly subscription to cancel out the effects of the first: medication

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

#358

Post by arbirk »

I know many will disagree and that is ok. Imo we need global id based on nation states national id. I know that the US doesn't have that, but the rest of the developed world do. I don't want id on porn sites because I don't think that is necessary, but I want bot-free social media, 13+ sharing forums like reddit and I want competitive games where if you are banned you need your brothers id to try cheating again.

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

#359

Post by hexyl_C_gut »

luplex wrote: post #251
julianozen wrote: post #235

There is missing a solution. Give our personal devices have the ability to verify our age and identity securely and store on device like they do our fingerprint or face data. Services that need access only verify it cryptographically. So my iPhone can confirm I’m over 21 for my DoorDash app in the same way it stores my biometric data. The challenge here is the adoption of these encryption services and whether compani…

I think this is what my German electronic ID card does. The card connects to an app on my phone via NFC, a service can cryptographically verify a claim about my age, and no additional info is leaked to the service provider or the government.

But that doesn't verify that the person using the ID is the person that it was issued to.

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

#360

Post by adolph »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #316
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…

How easy is it for kids to bypass Parental Controls on iOS devices?

When everything is turned off by default, iOS Screentime is very effective. It also has effective tools for to grant certain exceptions, facilitated by Messages. It also distinguishes between "daytime" and "downtime" for the purpose of certain apps and app attributes, like the contact list. For example, we have ourselves, grandparents and the neighbors as "all the time" contacts but their friends as daytime only. They don't retain their devices at night but it is possible for them to pull them from the charging cabinet.
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