Dare Obasanjo

I am not a fan of the rise of mandatory age verification in apps and websites.

But if that’s the direction we’re going to go in then it makes the most sense for this to be supported at the operating system level than every random website or app collecting your government ID.

https://www.ft.com/content/c36dc645-8cd4-4e69-a9ce-3a0ac4071264?syn-25a6b1a6=1

Apple rolls out UK age checks for iPhone users

Move follows pressure from government on smartphone makers to do more to protect children online

Financial Times
Mar 25 at 1:31pmWeb
Show threadDer Giga2d ago

@carnage4life If you implement a bad thing correctly, it easily gets worse than implementing it half-assed.

Might be my experience as a German.

Show threadPete Alex Harris🦡🕸️🌲/∞🪐∫2d ago

@carnage4life
But then how do the websites trust that the operating system did it "properly"?

It's the age old problem that the client is inherently untrustworthy from the point of view of the server. Anything could be running there, including a version of Linux that just lets any user say "I'm 36" without checking anything.

I mean, I say problem. It's very much their problem more than ours.

Show threadJohn2d ago

@petealexharris @carnage4life I'm going to say (perhaps hope) that the goal of the California bill is not ironclad compliance. Instead it is about satisfying a social concern, while minimizing overhead and protecting privacy.

As far as I'm concerned, if a parent can just say a kid is 16, that's good enough. It would be a much worse world if a parent actually had to prove it.

And if a kid admins his own system, that's on him too.

Show threadPete Alex Harris🦡🕸️🌲/∞🪐∫2d ago
@buckfiftyseven @carnage4life
I'm all in favour of things that encourage kids to learn technical circumvention measures, so they'll know how when they really need them in a survival situation. Which shouldn't be looming on the horizon but definitely is.
Show threadℍ𝕠𝕨2d ago
@petealexharris @carnage4life You just need to create a user on your OS saying you are 100 years old, such a big skills hacking, I'm sure kids wanting to play games just needs to change that and I hope they don't try to download apps that promisses a bypass of this age verification, it just makes it worse, parents needs to activate the parental control on their kids devices which is a thing that already exist and block their games or websites, again, it already exist and it's just the parents choice to not activate it. This OS API is the most absurd thing I ever saw in my life.
Show threadℍ𝕠𝕨2d ago
@carnage4life Any OS already have parental control, it exist, parents just needs to activate it.
Show threadBence Varga2d ago
@carnage4life my not-so-eloquent answer would be "how about no?" My bit more so one says that the only private information my OS could know about me should be restricted to its licensing.
Show threadD.C.U.K.2d ago

@carnage4life Mandating it at the operating system level also seems bad though. I don't get why a random router or FTP server or something should have to provide some enum value about whether its user falls in the 12-18 or 0-9 age bracket or whatever. The question doesn't even make sense.

It also seems like this could more easily have been done in the private sector by creating a standard for querying parental controls on devices that actually have them.

Show threadStuart Roebuck2d ago
@carnage4life What about a government digitally signed proof of age. No need to share ID and no need to rely on OS
Show threadJeremy2d ago
@carnage4life
Counterpoint: No.
Show threadxgerman2d ago
@carnage4life its content restriction disguised at age - once they have the ID of everyone what stops them to go after people/consuming unpatriotic content?