@lbky @nixCraft @kobold I don't want a technical solution to the social problem but this PR is clearly a step towards justifying the social problem, and that's what I dislike. Nothing is stopping enforcement yet I don't wish to make such enforcement easier.

The same "but a program can already indirectly read this information" is already true for a lot of stuff, like reading passwords or your national ID from browser cache but it's not a reason to design a default API for it.

@lbky @nixCraft @kobold I basically agree with the argument given there, but I draw the line before age information.

> For certain other PII there's no legitimate use.

I think it's just a matter of coming up with a reason and washing complaints off under it being optional.

But adding that information as first-class PII is only going to lead to misuse, the OS shouldn't be responsible of patental controls or any other reason. That should be tracked by the program that uses it.

@lbky @nixCraft @kobold

The fact that is optional doesn't make this any better and I'm sick of this argument, it would be filled with false data anyways. I'll play devil's advocate and imagine if they added a "sex"/"gender" field so some random sexist region in the world could legislate computer use for women. Would making such field optional improve the situation the slightest? Or would it still be complying with authoritarian measures that nobody wants to give room for?

@lbky @nixCraft @kobold

I don't care if it's optional, it still aims for age verification and I don't want that to even be possible in an OS. All this does is make further surveillance even easier because if most distros become able to support age detection nothing is stopping apps and governments to enforce the use of such field.