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UK.gov to make adults give credit card details for access to Facebook or TikTok

theregister.com

91–100 of 185 posts

Re: UK.gov to make adults give credit card details for access to Facebook or TikTok

#91
post #75

This needs to be seen in the context of the political situation in the UK. Boris Johnson, the current PM, is currently on this 9th and last political live. During the strictest period of lockdown, when UK citizens where not able to say goodbye to loved ones dying in hospitals, several parties were organised at his residence . It is alleged he attended two of them himself and was photographed drinking beer. In attempt…

I'm pretty sure that it was the leader of the opposition who was photographed drinking beers with his colleagues during lockdown, and everyone seems to have bought the claim that was work related and therefore legal. Boris and his colleagues were drinking wine. The big reason that he's on his 9th and last political life is increasingly cynical attacks on him over the handling of Covid - for context, one of the most r…

Johnson will go down as one of the worst PM's in UK's history.

Under his leadership UK suffered immense damage and he dragged down political standards to an almost Trumpian level.

The PPE that was sourced was unusable and the deals were handed out to some Tory mates. Where was the due-diligence?

The police looked into Steir Karmer's beer case and concluded he didn't break the laws.

Compare that to the Tory's multiple parties.

The PM is under criminal investigation for crying out loud.

Why didn't he stop those parties he was at. As the leader he could have easily said this is not on and needs to be stopped now. He sets the tone.

He's a disgrace to the UK and can't lead. He's a lying narcissist who only cares about what's good for him. It's all about 'winning' and not actually thinking about how to improve the lives of people living in the UK.

The Johnson administration is a joke and needs to be replaced asap.

Re: UK.gov to make adults give credit card details for access to Facebook or TikTok

#92

This feels like it could be resolved by technology. I am happy to identify myself to government entity A to prove my age, but I don't want A to know what sites I visit. I want to visit site B, but I don't want to identify myself. Is there no API that will allow B to verify my age via A, without A finding out what site B is, and without B finding out anything more than my age bracket?

This is resolvable by technology only if your plan is to replace Chris Philp by OpenAI powered bill generator.

Re: UK.gov to make adults give credit card details for access to Facebook or TikTok

#93

This feels like it could be resolved by technology. I am happy to identify myself to government entity A to prove my age, but I don't want A to know what sites I visit. I want to visit site B, but I don't want to identify myself. Is there no API that will allow B to verify my age via A, without A finding out what site B is, and without B finding out anything more than my age bracket?

OAuth 2.0 resolves this. The government can be in control of maintaining citizens' identities and citizens can likewise request claims from the government's auth server regarding their age or any other matter. That claim as a signed message can be provided to third-party services which need only validate the signed message using the public key associated with the secret key that signed the claim message.

[deleted]

Re: UK.gov to make adults give credit card details for access to Facebook or TikTok

#94
post #75

This needs to be seen in the context of the political situation in the UK. Boris Johnson, the current PM, is currently on this 9th and last political live. During the strictest period of lockdown, when UK citizens where not able to say goodbye to loved ones dying in hospitals, several parties were organised at his residence . It is alleged he attended two of them himself and was photographed drinking beer. In attempt…

I'm pretty sure that it was the leader of the opposition who was photographed drinking beers with his colleagues during lockdown, and everyone seems to have bought the claim that was work related and therefore legal. Boris and his colleagues were drinking wine. The big reason that he's on his 9th and last political life is increasingly cynical attacks on him over the handling of Covid - for context, one of the most r…

> for context, one of the most recent ones is accusing him of "wasting" billions of pounds on PPE because the government ended up buying more PPE than it actually ended up using and the price dropped since then.

Ah, gotta love alternative takes on realities. Nah mate, the expensive PPE contracts went to friends and family of people in government. Ooh sure, these are just "cynical attacks" and in reality Boris and co are competent and non-corrupt people working so hard to serve the UK public.

Re: UK.gov to make adults give credit card details for access to Facebook or TikTok

#95

This needs to be seen in the context of the political situation in the UK. Boris Johnson, the current PM, is currently on this 9th and last political live. During the strictest period of lockdown, when UK citizens where not able to say goodbye to loved ones dying in hospitals, several parties were organised at his residence . It is alleged he attended two of them himself and was photographed drinking beer. In attempt…

>More importantly this government will likely not be around long enough to actually introduce it

Don't worry. The next one is going to introduce it. Doesn't matter which party gets into power - one thing stays the same: The government/state always expands in scope.

Re: UK.gov to make adults give credit card details for access to Facebook or TikTok

#96
post #27
post #23

People don’t realize how invasive the UK govt is when it comes to internet monitoring. Today if you try to access adult content on a UK mobile device you get blocked by age verification. You have to call your mobile provider and prove your age (it’s a once-per-contract thing). One of the ways you can prove your age is with a credit card. But I imagine it’s a large deterrent because not many people want to call Vodafo…

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Make sure do your research about Open VPN and VPS before using any of it.

Re: UK.gov to make adults give credit card details for access to Facebook or TikTok

#97
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This says ...or a valid id.... ,which is a lot more common than a credit card. Credit cards in the EU are not very prominent as a payment method, mostly for paying USA companies.

When I said credit card I thought it was obvious I meant that debit cards are also acceptable. Turns out it wasn't!

You don't need to be of legal age to get a debit card, but you do for a credit card, hence why credit cards are often used as age verification.

Re: UK.gov to make adults give credit card details for access to Facebook or TikTok

#98
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure that it was the leader of the opposition who was photographed drinking beers with his colleagues during lockdown, and everyone seems to have bought the claim that was work related and therefore legal. Boris and his colleagues were drinking wine. The big reason that he's on his 9th and last political life is increasingly cynical attacks on him over the handling of Covid - for context, one of the most r…

> for context, one of the most recent ones is accusing him of "wasting" billions of pounds on PPE because the government ended up buying more PPE than it actually ended up using and the price dropped since then. Ah, gotta love alternative takes on realities. Nah mate, the expensive PPE contracts went to friends and family of people in government. Ooh sure, these are just "cynical attacks" and in reality Boris and co…

No, it's in the fine print of some (though not all) of the media reporting - most of the "wasted" billions that made the news headlines in the UK was from the decrease in the market price of the stockpile: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60176283 The next highest was items "unusable in the NHS", which is to say they're functional PPE but don't meet normal NHS standards - most countries ended up intentionally buying a lot of this because medical PPE was in massive short supply and there were similar non-medical items that were a lot better than nothing.

Really, the UK PPE acquistion was unremarkable aside from its speed - the government ended up buying PPE from basically everyone who could sell it to them, just like every other government that was taking Covid seriously. Some of those contracts inevitably went to friends of people in government (they're the party of big business after all) but there's no evidence that played any role in them being awarded the contracts, those people weren't the ones deciding who to award the contracts to, and those contracts don't seem to have fared any worse than any of the other PPE contracts. The speed was also impossible to disentangle from the perception of corruption, a lot of which came from not putting the contracts out to bid as usual.

(There was a really weird - and as it turns out probably illegal - VIP fast lane where people who got referred via an MPs got priority for being evaluated for PPE contracts. The weird thing is that the effective criteria to get onto the fast lane just seem to have been phoning or emailing your MP and pestering them, and that the politicians doing the referrals don't seem to have known about the fast lane. The one friend and donor of a senior member of government who got on the fast lane was also somehow referred by someone else entirely...)

Re: UK.gov to make adults give credit card details for access to Facebook or TikTok

#99

This feels like it could be resolved by technology. I am happy to identify myself to government entity A to prove my age, but I don't want A to know what sites I visit. I want to visit site B, but I don't want to identify myself. Is there no API that will allow B to verify my age via A, without A finding out what site B is, and without B finding out anything more than my age bracket?

OAuth 2.0 resolves this. The government can be in control of maintaining citizens' identities and citizens can likewise request claims from the government's auth server regarding their age or any other matter. That claim as a signed message can be provided to third-party services which need only validate the signed message using the public key associated with the secret key that signed the claim message.

I don't think oauth 2 would give the required privacy protection.

How would the flow go? Click on an age verification link on a site. It redirects to the gov site, where you authenticate and it returns a signed claim.

Now the government knows what sites you are visiting. Not something I suspect most people will want when accessing porn sites...

Re: UK.gov to make adults give credit card details for access to Facebook or TikTok

#100
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happened in the EU? You don't need a credit card to access porn or Facebook in the EU.

You need a credit card to watch age-restricted videos on YouTube.

It should be noted that this is also the case in the UK today.
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