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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

#391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ?

> The "Bank identity" system in Czech Republic (and likely other countries) can be used to log into to various government services.

In Poland we have the same setup.

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

#392

I work at a European identity wallet system that uses a zero knowledge proof age identification system. It derives an age attribute such as "over 18" from a passport or ID, without disclosing any other information such as the date of birth. As long as you trust the government that gave out the ID, you can trust the attribute, and anonymously verify somebodies age. I think there are many pros and cons to be said about…

This is true, but I think it's more that those jurisdictions don't actually care about something solving this securely so much as they want face scans for other purposes?

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

#393
post #315

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…

Step 0 is physical device access. Kids shouldn't have tablets or smartphones or personal laptops before age 16.

I hope they do pass a law like that, because it'd give my kids a gigantic advantage over the kids who had no access modern technology and the free flow of information until the age of 16. If you want to leave your kids completely unable to find any kind of gainful employment in the AI era, be my guest.

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

#394

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…

The greatest of uphill battles in today's current climate is trying to push anything in the realm of personal responsibility. Politicians' whole basis for nearly every campaign is "you're helpless, let us fix it for you." For the vast majority of problems plaguing society, the answer isn't government, it's for people changing their behavior. Same goes for parenting. But unfortunately, "you're an adult, figure it out"…

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

#395

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…

The real problem with this is that the ultimate objective isn't age verification, it's complete de-anonymization. I think different groups want this for different reasons, but the simple reality is that minimizing the identify information transferred around is antithetical to their goals.

If we create age verification tools with strong privacy protections that solve the problems they raise, we can can call their bluff.

If we fight every and any solution, we may end up with their solution, becauase they build it. We end up in the position of saying "don't use the thing they built" without offering alternatives. I'd rather be saying "use whatbwe built, ita is better."

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

#396

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…

The greatest of uphill battles in today's current climate is trying to push anything in the realm of personal responsibility. Politicians' whole basis for nearly every campaign is "you're helpless, let us fix it for you." For the vast majority of problems plaguing society, the answer isn't government, it's for people changing their behavior. Same goes for parenting. But unfortunately, "you're an adult, figure it out"…

It wasn’t always this way: “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country”

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

#397
post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a bit confused by that comment. Are parents social responsible to prevent companies from selling alcohol/guns/cigarettes to minors? If a company set up shop in a school and sold those things to minors during school breaks, who has the social responsibility to stop that?

ISPs and OSs should be the ones providing these tools and make is stupid easy to set up a child's account and have a walled garden for kids to use.

Mark Zuckerberg advocates for this, most people entrenched in this argument think it's worse. But I'm all for burning it to the ground so.

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

#399

I work at a European identity wallet system that uses a zero knowledge proof age identification system. It derives an age attribute such as "over 18" from a passport or ID, without disclosing any other information such as the date of birth. As long as you trust the government that gave out the ID, you can trust the attribute, and anonymously verify somebodies age. I think there are many pros and cons to be said about…

Yeah, but how to convince investors that trusting the government-issued ID is good enough? /s

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

#400
post #243

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…

The solution has always been there: Assume everybody is an adult. The only reasonable way to deal with children on the Internet is to treat Internet access like access to alcohol/drugs. There is no need for children to access the Internet full stop. Internet is a network in which everything can connect to everything, and every connected machine can run clients, servers, p2p nodes and what not. Controlling every possi…

So you would deny children the greatest source of knowledge in the history? I have learned math and programming thanks to unlimited access to the web and would not be where I am without it.
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