I have not looked into the sources myself but a Swedish podcsst called “Bli säker podden” that is about cybersecurity had an episode where they talked about this, and it was menetioned the age verification is for big corps with a certain amount of users only, which could mean we are getting a lot of people to the federated social media.
Maybe with this knowledge we can do something about it and get more people away from Meta and Twitter platforms.
Sadly I have little faith their proposal will be reasonable. It‘ll either be too soft or asking for unreasonable measures like broad identification and face IDs.
Depends from country to country.
Denmark for example have issued an age verification app, where no data other than “Allowed/Declined” is leaving the app.
No specific age, no name, no data.
The token is issued by the government.
Does the app require iOS/Android and google play services, and is proprietary?
Also gives the government data to track people, and presumably what source requested the token, so what the people are consuming. Denmark isn’t the worst country, but I wouldn’t trust any government with that
Also it locks under 18s out of online communities that could help them and show them alternative perspectives to insular IRL bubbles that can often exist
It’s always interesting to me when I hear people who distrusts governments more than private companies.
Maybe because I’m from Denmark, but it sounds so backwards.
If I were from the US tho, I would think the same. Or like “i’m fucked regardless”
I don’t trust governments that mandate the usage of private American services such as iOS/Google to access the internet
That’s a fair point.
My argument only applied to the age verification in the Danish app, which doesnt share the ID to any server.
The point is that you get a verification by logging in with another 2FA app, whos only job is to verify with the government server, that you are indeed a Danish citizen with official documentation.
Then the other app recieves that token that only contains an age group with a true flag. This token is then shared with the private companies.
As a stand alone solution to age verification that everyone needs to use, this is pretty well thought out.
If a Linux phone then comes around that everyone would buy, you could do it better, yes.
I mean, it still discriminates against non Danish citizens/those without ID for any reason/children
It doesnt work like that in Denmark. You can get this without being a Danish citizen with a Danish passport.
You can also get this ID as a child with your parents consent.
Like cigarettes, yeah it’s worse for kids but it’s not good for adults either. I’d rather see more restrictions placed in the companies making the toxic products than age verification based systems.
It never stops
This lady loves rules
About time Europe treated addictive feeds like the product design problem they are. The real test is whether this becomes meaningful age appropriate access with privacy preserving checks, or just another glorious cookie banner where everyone clicks »I’m 18« and TikTok solemnly salutes.
