In the US, you have a lot of this stuff coming in via the lawsuits against Meta for which so many people here are cheering. For that matter, the EU is also seeing lawsuits of that type.
This initiative is just a smokescreen; it actually pushes things down the slippery slope.
Citizens must not be forced to identify themselves to access lawful online content or services unless strictly necessary, proportionate and provided by law. The legislation should require anonymous or pseudonymous proof-of-age, data minimisation, selective disclosure
Define "necessary". Define "by law". The pushers for proof-of-age already say it's anonymous – but it can't be.
do we sign it this way? it would just agree to doing nothing but with fancy words, wouldn't it?
No, we don't; it's exactly as you say. My impression is that this is something organized by the pro-chat-control and pro-age-verification lobbies, to deceive with words people who are against. They get them to sign and then they can say "people signed for this!".
It's surely important to spread an anti-misinformation campaign!
Citizens must not be forced to identify themselves to access lawful online content or services unless strictly necessary, proportionate and provided by law.
Are you not aware of the Digital Services Act? This piece of legislation alone, provides all the incentives for service providers to do exactly that; unless they change their business-model, which is rather unlikely. By default, users should be treated as adults and therefore unrestricted in their access; rather than children unless proven otherwise.
If the EU would simply mandate operating systems sold within the jurisdiction, to allow specification of an optional 'date of birth' field, which is local and purely on a trust-basis (no external verification required); this should be more than sufficient for signaling an age-bracket to a service, which may then serve an "age-appropriate experience".
A digital identity wallet should be strictly reserved for matters that already required personal identification. Using such heavy-handed measures for controlling access to adult content, or even social media, is complete and utter overkill. I'm not interested in more empty, technical, server-side "trust me, bro" promises, for something that is fundamentally disproportional.
this should be more than sufficient for signaling an age-bracket to a service, which may then serve an "age-appropriate experience".
nothing should be signaled to any service. the service should signal its age limit, and the local software needs to compare the limit with the user age. that too could happen on a per content basis, I guess HTML or CSS could be extended with a new property for that.
then, if the user age is below the limit, the browser should continue loading the page as usual, but hidden from the user, to avoid introducing a new vector for fingerprinting.
A digital identity wallet should be strictly reserved for matters that already required personal identification. Using such heavy-handed measures for controlling access to adult content, or even social media, is complete and utter overkill.
or even to government services portals that did not require personal identification.
Supported. Next, start a petition to criminalize politicians pushing the same crappy laws again and again in the hopes they at some point pass.
Supported and yes, please.
I've heard these encryption backdoor proposals come back every year or two for over the past 2 decades
Well, not exactly, but almost!
We call on the European Commission to propose legislation ensuring that digital identity and age-assurance systems used to access online services in the Union remain voluntary, privacy-preserving and non-discriminatory. Citizens must not be forced to identify themselves to access lawful online content or services unless strictly necessary, proportionate and provided by law. The legislation should require anonymous or pseudonymous proof-of-age, data minimisation, selective disclosure, open-source implementation, independent security audits, prohibition of cross-service tracking by relying parties, and equivalent alternatives for citizens who do not use a digital wallet.
Yeah, nah.
Yeah, I read the language on their website and they seemed to be holding a much stricter line. Here the line seems more blurry where :
I am not part the campaign so I'm only trying to guess.
Edit: I have mailed up the Representative of the ECI, I will send an update if i receive a response.
Privacy preserving proof of age can be done with eID...
I get the feeling the StopKilling[Thing] people are starting to push for weaker and weaker laws just so that they can say they did something. EU commission shot down your games initiative? No worries, the already proposed Digitial Fairness Act does the same thing anyways!
California's proposed bill completely ignores preservation by allowing games to be deleted so long as purchasers receive a refund? That's a win!
Also I just looked up the California bill, it has been amended.
It used to read:
A refund in an amount equal to the full purchase price paid for the digital game by the purchaser
Now it reads:
A refund in an amount equal to the highest price of the digital game offered by the digital game operator within the 12 months before the digital game operator ceases providing services necessary for the ordinary use of the digital game.
So if the studio drops the price to $1 a year before taking the game away then they can delete everyone's copy by giving them $1 without breaking this law.
The StopKillingGames people made a fanfare about the initial legislation, but they seem to be silent on this amendment.
Everyone don't forget to Sign, Cross-post, Federate and Share everywhere you can !
Déanta ✍️
Fatto ✍️
Signed, but be careful, the website is shitty and does not let you out with the back button.
Signed!
Done, thanks!
Done
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
