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Google will soon ask Australian users to show ID to view some content

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Re: Google will soon ask Australian users to show ID to view some content

#91

Post by klabb3 »

manytree wrote: post #61

Sounds like exact quandary that the emerging DID spec (Decentralized Identifiers) [ https://www.w3.org/TR/did-core/ ] is hoping to solve. I.e. you can submit your proof of age to an attestation service (in this case, perhaps the australian government itself) and receive an anonymous DID from which you can issue proofs of age without revealing other aspects of your identity.

Yes, but I find this unlikely to be endorsed by governments in the short term.

It'd be great if the law said that it's (very) illegal for the verifying party to share or store any of the PII, including with the government.

Re: Google will soon ask Australian users to show ID to view some content

#92

Post by XorNot »

Welp time to re-up a mulvad subscription I guess. The Australian government has been embracing cronyism and corruption for a while, but until half the country stops rewarding the incumbent party with votes while complaining about everything they do because "the other guys will be worse" then here we are.

Re: Google will soon ask Australian users to show ID to view some content

#93

Post by Broken_Hippo »

jlund-molfese wrote: post #49
jmrm wrote: post #38

What kind of problem solves this measure? If someone think that minors won't access adult content that person is pretty naive. Only with TV shows, series, movies, music, and games they are going to watch a lot of violence and sex scenes, and most of us knows there are a lot of easy ways to access to this kind of content outside mass media. Letting the usefulness of this measure aside, I think there should be other wa…

I don’t disagree with anything you said, but some countries, like the US, don’t have a national ID system. So we usually have the option of using one of several different ways to verify our identities[1] for commercial services. Unfortunately most still do give you fixed numbers that don’t change unless you move to another state. 1. https://help.id.me/hc/en-us/articles/360017833054

but some countries, like the US, don’t have a national ID system

This is.. not quite true. Social security numbers are used this way (even if they aren't intended to be such a thing) and passports are essentially a national ID system. My passport is the only valid ID that I have - of course, I live outside the US and have to have the nearest US embassy renew it. (I don't qualify for Norwegian IDs yet, and my immigration card is a supplement to my passport instead of actual ID)

Re: Google will soon ask Australian users to show ID to view some content

#94

Post by zuminator »

RobertMiller wrote: post #42
emteycz wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why they didn't try to require ID for all the previous years until laws required it?

If they want us to believe they're displeased at this requirement, why don't they say so? Google has certainly complained and protested about other laws before. > In response to multiple complaints we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 15 results from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaints that caused the removals at LumenDatabase.org:

1) For Google to "complain" about the law and then still enforce it is just a toothless objection, virtue signaling. At least in the case of the LumenDatabase.org notice, their complaint actually serves a valid purpose of subverting the law (by allowing the user to see the offending domains.)

2) Google is a US corporation. If it is unhappy with US laws, it could be considered perhaps reasonable or even responsible for it to voice its concerns as a "corporate person" while it continues to fulfill its legal obligations. But it's a guest in Australia. If it doesn't want to obey the laws enacted by the people of Australia in Australia, it doesn't have to. After exhausting any judicial remedies, it can simply choose to leave Australia voluntarily. But to continue to reap Australian dollars while being demonstratively surly about it, could come across as disrespectful to the people of Australia. It would be as if someone came as a "plus one" to an exclusive party at your house, and then vocally complained the entire time that they were "forced" to remove their shoes.

Re: Google will soon ask Australian users to show ID to view some content

#95

Post by simion314 »

flerchin wrote: post #76
simion314 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? it would not be forced on you but think about this super easy scenario. 1 I buy a device for my child and I set it up and enter his birthday, say he is under 13 2 I buy me a device , setup my account and enter my credit card to use the Store , the OS now is 100% sure I am an adult 3 The browser on our devices knows our ages now 4 13+ , 18+ webpages will mark this in the header , the browser on the child phone kn…

Sure it could come in via user agent. I would worry that governments would then attempt to regulate and lock down browsers such that Free Software is no longer viable, or even legal.

I think most of us know that clicking "I am 18+" is a joke, governments will eventually look into this and not because politicians want to make it harder for them to access this pages but because activists and religious groups will put pressure on them (I seen with my own eyes religious people exiting from a party because the leadership allowed gays to have a parade in the city, and if in your region/country there are many religious people like this the politicians will try to get their votes) , so the tech sector needs to find a solution for this that is privacy friendly. At this moment I can use my bank and PayPal from Linux so there is no technical reason that prevents open source software to implement it.

Re: Google will soon ask Australian users to show ID to view some content

#96

Post by AlexCoventry »

cmckn wrote: post #28
LewisVerstappen wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"If our systems are unable to establish that a viewer is above the age of 18, we will request that they provide a valid ID or credit card to verify their age.” I don't think Google is complaining too much. Especially if it gives them an excuse to collect credit card data (reducing a significant amount of friction when they sell YouTube premium / google drive subscriptions).

Does google actually save this payment information for use in subsequent transactions? Or is it just used as part of the age verification process?

In the article, someone from google claims the data will be deleted as soon as it has been used for verification, FWIW.

Re: Google will soon ask Australian users to show ID to view some content

#97

Post by mikem170 »

zo1 wrote: post #87
wutbrodo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ~only reason gov't ever does anything is because they think it looks good to voters. And any given voter doesn't have "wants" or "beliefs", just violent mood swings and social performance. This isn't really even a bug of government's! Government action is very often valuable and necessary. But the incentive structure is such that modeling the gov't as a somewhat-rational entity with well-formed desires is usually…

If that's the case, then we should be able to do a referendum for legislation this "big" to go through, right? I'd argue that the lack of a robust, accessible and easy form of referendums means we're not fundamentally different to a dictatorship.

I admire Switzerland's system, where the people can petition for a referendum to delete any law they don't like.

This forces the politicians to negotiate with motivated minorities before creating new laws.

Instead in the U.S. we allow rich people and corporations (who are not voters!) to give money to politicians. In most other democracies this is illegal and considered to be corrupt.

Re: Google will soon ask Australian users to show ID to view some content

#98

Post by seanmcdirmid »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #93
jlund-molfese wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t disagree with anything you said, but some countries, like the US, don’t have a national ID system. So we usually have the option of using one of several different ways to verify our identities[1] for commercial services. Unfortunately most still do give you fixed numbers that don’t change unless you move to another state. 1. https://help.id.me/hc/en-us/articles/360017833054

but some countries, like the US, don’t have a national ID system This is.. not quite true. Social security numbers are used this way (even if they aren't intended to be such a thing) and passports are essentially a national ID system. My passport is the only valid ID that I have - of course, I live outside the US and have to have the nearest US embassy renew it. (I don't qualify for Norwegian IDs yet, and my immigrat…

An American passport ID number changes every ten years, causing lots of problems when foreign banks (like Chinese ones) try to use it as a stable ID number. Source: personal experience.

Re: Google will soon ask Australian users to show ID to view some content

#99

Post by AlexCoventry »

iso1210 wrote: post #73
WinterMount223 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain further?

Imagine you are visiting hacker news, and for some reason you have to prove your age, but you don't want HN to know who you are, nor your age identity site to know you're going to HN One way to do this off the top mf my head would be HN issues a unique number (say 4096 bit) to you when you create an account You send that number to your identity provider along with confirming proof of age The identity provider signs t…

You can do even better than that. IRU could proxy your TLS connection to the identity provider, and you could prove to IRU in zero knowledge that the decrypted transcript verifies that your age is over some threshold, without IRU ever seeing your age, and without the provider having to run a signature service. Then IRU is the one who signs the attestation on your age.

https://eprint.iacr.org/2020/934.pdf

Re: Google will soon ask Australian users to show ID to view some content

#100

Post by Drdrdrq »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #77
cute_boi wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should we even guess? Google is already trying hard to store payment information filled in form.

Chrome will save credit card data on request, it’s incredibly convenient if you do a lot of online food ordering.

Convenience is often the biggest enemy of privacy.
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