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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

#601

Post by sigbottle »

techblueberry wrote: post #432
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…

I know this is weird, but I'm in some ways not really sure who is on the side of freedom here. I get your position, but like. The whole idea of the promise of the internet has been destroyed by newsfeeds and mega-corps. There is almost literally documented examples of Facebook executives twirling their mustaches wondering how they can get kids more addicted. This isn't a few bands with swear words, and in fact, I thi…

Centralization and standardization are going to be the topic in the 21st century.

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

#602

Post by croes »

tinfoilhatter wrote: post #492
croes wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> then give parents strong monitoring and restriction tools and empower them to protect their children. Because parents don’t abuse massive surveillance tools. Given that most abuse happens in the family and by parents maybe it’s a bad idea to give them so much power

So we should trust the governments of the world? The same governments that don't seem to be doing anything about a large group of people that visited a specific island to abuse minors?

Where did I say that?

Exactly, nowhere.

If I‘m contra B, it doesn’t mean I pro A

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

#603

Post by trinsic2 »

adolph wrote: post #328
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…

> holding parents accountable for what their children consume There is a local dive bar down the street. I haven't expressly told my kids that entering and ordering an alcoholic drink is forbidden. In fact, that place has a hamburger stand out front on weekends and I wouldn't discourage my kids from trying it out if they were out exploring. I still expect that the bartender would check their ID before pulling a pint…

That same argument doesn't hold water on the internet. Its a communication medium. Its like a flow of information. You don't enter or leave physically spaces. the information flows to you where ever you are. trying to apply the same kinds of laws to the internet is a recipe for disaster because you are effecting everyone at the same time.

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

#604

Post by EmbarrassedHelp »

Wobbles42 wrote: post #461

The purpose of a system is what it does. Undermining data protection and privacy is clearly the point. The fact that it's happening everywhere at the same time makes it look to me like a bunch of leaders got together and decided that online anonymity is a problem. It's not like kids having access to adult content is a new problem after all. Every western government just decided that we should do something about it at…

You are missing the profit driven angle. Age verification companies and their lobbyists are pouring massive amounts of resources into lobbying for mandatory age verification. And the reason why can be pretty simple. They get richer of off violating people's privacy, especially when those privacy violations are legally required.

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

#605

Post by srmatto »

throwawayk7h wrote: post #579
belorn wrote: 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?

Parents can't easily prevent their kids from going to those kinds of stores once they're at the age where the parent doesn't need to keep an eye on them all the time and they can travel about on their own. The difference though is that parents are generally the ones to give their kids their phones and devices. These devices could send headers to websites saying "I'm a kid" -- but this system doesn't exist, and parent…

Or people who aren't parents are yet again sharing strong opinions that are not based in reality. Plenty of parental controls are deployed, how long they last against a determined child is the real question. Here's a concrete example for you. Spotify has a web browser built in so that you can watch music videos, kids have figured out a way to use that to watch any video on YouTube--a 12 year old told me this. If you search on this subject you'll quickly learn this is well known and is generally being ignored by Spotify. Why not allow parents to disable the in-app web browser / video function?

It's not as easy as you may believe to prevent that type of access.

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

#606

Post by jajuuka »

Aurornis wrote: post #590
EmbarrassedHelp wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the EU Identity Wallet's documentation, the EU's planned system requires highly invasive age verification to obtain 30 single use, easily trackable tokens that expire after 3 months. It also bans jailbreaking/rooting your device, and requires GooglePlay Services/IOS equivalent be installed to "prevent tampering". You have to blindly trust that the tokens will not be tracked, which is a total no-go for pr…

Thanks for posting this. The inherent problem with all zero knowledge identity solutions is that they also prevent any of the safeguards that governments want for ID checking. A true zero knowledge ID check with blind signatures wouldn't work because it would only take a single leaked ID for everyone to authenticate their accounts with the same leaked ID. So the providers start putting in restrictions and logging and…

I mean that's kind of a problem with ANY solution. There will be workarounds and ways to break it. There is no perfect solution outside someone standing over you while on the internet. We need to look at this more like age checks on porn sites and gaming platforms where you just put in a birthdate. Obviously someone can lie, but that point isn't to be a perfect wall but a hurdle to clear to make sure users are aware of the content and that any sort of nanny software to block if set up.

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

#607

Post by EmbarrassedHelp »

kristopolous wrote: post #132
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 it's because there's always a group of nosy busybodies finger-wagging about protecting the children and we have to do decorative theatrics to satiate whatever narratives they've convinced themselves of

I bet that the Chat Control lobbyist groups are involved to some degree, as they tried to require age verification in Chat Control before it was shot down. They probably haven't given up after that defeat.

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

#608

Post by myrion »

uniq7 wrote: post #423
antitoxic wrote: post #390

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…

In your system, can companies verify age offline, or do they need to send a token to the Government's authority to verify it (letting the Government identify and track users)? Switzerland is working on a system that does the former, but if Government really wants to identify users, they can still ask the company to provide the age verification tokens they collected, since the Government hosts a centralized database t…

That assumes the companies store the individual tokens, as does the government. Neither of which are part of the design, but could be done if both sides desired it.

The Swiss design actually doesn't store the issued tokens centrally. It only stores a trust root centrally and then a verifier only checks the signature comes from that trust root (slightly simplified).

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

#609

Post by Y-bar »

unethical_ban wrote: post #507
briffle wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when I was a kid in the early 90's, my state (and many others) banned cigarette vending machines since there was no way to prevent them being used by minors, unless they were inside a bar, where minors were already not allowed.

The problem is, doing the analogous action with the entire internet is a privacy nightmare. You didn't have to tell 7-11 every item you bought at every store in the past 2 years and opt-in to telling them what other stores you go to for the next 5. There is no digital equivalent of "flash an ID card and be done with it" in the surveillance state era of the internet. Using a CC is the closest we have and even then you…

You do not need to control the entire internet. Put time limits on connected devices. Use parental controls. Talk to your kids about what they do online. Set clear boundaries. Reward good behaviour. Talk to other parents to align these limits to avoid social issues among the kids.

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

#610

Post by Forgeties79 »

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…

> We'll try everything, it seems, other than holding parents accountable for what their children consume.

It’s not a fair fight. These are multi-billion dollar companies with international reach and decades of investment and research weaponized against us to make us all little addicts.

Additionally, it’s not fair or reasonable to ask parents to screen literally everything their kids do with a screen at all times any more than it was reasonable for your parents to always know what you were watching on TV at all times.

This is bootstraps/caveat emptor by a different name. It’s not “I want someone else to raise my kids.” It’s “the current state of affairs shouldn’t be so hostile that I have to maintain constant digital vigilance over my children.” Hell if you do people then lecture you about how “back in their day they played in the street and into the night” and call you a helicopter parent

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