- cross-posted to:
- privacy@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- privacy@lemmy.ml
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.wtf/post/49143200
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/71629767
This is unacceptable. And I’m sick of all the fucking workarounds to maintain basic privacy.
Really easily. There are multiple possible options, not all equally easy, but the best option for privacy is also the easiest.
You don’t do true age verification. You mandate that operating systems and browsers work out a parental controls API and require apps and websites support that API. Then you ask (if you really want, you could demand, but I’d prefer to ask or suggest) parents to ensure their kids’ devices are configured correctly. When a user tries to access an age-restricted site, it calls an API in their browser, which calls an API in the OS, which returns a simple true/false value based on whether or not the current profile is configured to be old enough to access it.
Adults don’t have to do anything to prove they are adults. Merely the fact that they were able to buy a device that they control and didn’t get configured as a child is the proof.
More complicated solutions if you really insist on having true age verification could involve blinded signatures. I can explain in more detail if people are interested, but the slightly simplified TL;DR is that you have a system where the user goes to a trusted age verifier (my preference is for governments to do this themselves rather than farm it out to private companies, but either works). They do the age verification using ID, face recognition, whatever, and send the user a special token that they can use to prove they were age verified but which the site can’t use to determine any personal details about the user. Meanwhile the age verifier doesn’t know what site the age verification was just done for.
That would just move the burden of age verification onto retailers.
Not necessarily. It puts it where it belongs: on parents. Parents who buy computers and phones for their kids have the responsibility of supervising their use. My own preference is that this would be something that parents are encouraged to use through public education campaigns.
But yes, depending of the level of strictness, it could also be enforced at point of sale. A fairly standard practice. We’re already used to it with alcohol, cigarettes, knives. Heck, it’s already done when buying a SIM for your phone. It has the advantage of preserving the most important part of privacy—the link between the person and their activity. The phone store knows you bought a phone and that you’re an adult, but they have no idea what sites or apps you’re using.
Televisions have had similar age restriction technology built-in for a while now.