Not sure what the problem is.
Most of us are our own system administrators, so we will leave this new field empty.
Servers usually will leave this empty too, because most of users are admins or don't have human users to relate to.
The only ones who will set this up are parents in order to have a measure of control of what their children have access to.
It is only a first step in order to have solid parental controls in Linux. I see no privacy issue here.
@jgg @meanmicio Partialy agree, but... It's create base for other goverments say "Look, all already use it and services already support it. What prevents us from demanding the same?"
Age flag inside systemd need for only and only for "ID collection".
I think is very important for parents to be able to warn apps and web sites that the person using the app or visiting the site is a minor. And the only practical way to do so with no hassle or limitation for adults is to do it at the OS level. Forcing applications and apps to do it is cumbersome, a pain for adults, and a privacy nightmare. It is bad even for parents, since they should have the ability to give their children access to more adult content if they think they are mature enough for it.
But it is the device administrator who must "verify" the age, not the OS vendor or the government. Parents should have the agency to decide if their children may access something or not. So parents should be able to configure the "age" of the user, in a way that can match or not the real one. And adults must be free to not configure anything, and access whatever they want.
And if somebody gives a phone to his child without configure his age... Well, it is the same as a parent who gives his child a porn magazine. It's his responsibility.
Does that need a flag inside systemd or should it be another place? I don't know, I don't really care; it is mostly the same.
Anyway, I'm not a systemd expert, but I can imagine systemd stores enough information in system logs to make an optional age flag look like nothing, privacy wise.
Maybe a way to make this better would be to make that flag a boolean, a simple IsAMinor, to be updated when time comes, and nothing else.
Luis Falcon
Curioso 🍉 🇺🇦 (jgg)
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