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.
Curb it only on Thursdays?
No, just this coming Thursday.
It's just an excuse to create a "papers please" internet.
Hah, so they too prefer to police minors instead of companies.
You mean everyone, not just minors.
It's what this madness requires: everyone is a child until they can prove otherwise. To an age verification company that's existed for 2 weeks and definitely isn't lying or incompetent...
And of course they do. Can't risk a CEO crying wolf and it being real for once. Think of "the economy".
I hate this timeline. 😒
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
Germany's app (AusweisApp2) is open source and available for literally every platform. Linux, FreeBSD and even Fdroid included.
I'm not sure of the exact functionality and whether the government can track anything. You need to scan your ID, the app will then ask for a PIN (2fa) and then will tell you which data will be sent to whoever made the request.
Authentication is done through an eID server which in theory anyone can set up. The requirement are quite strict though so right now there are only three providers. They check the validity of the ID and request and send the received ID data to the requestor.
It's quite the complicated procedure to ensure the highest possible security and privacy.
The entire process is publicly documented and you can probably spend a few hours trying to understand it.
As for locking people out of online communities: I don't think it's a problem if and only if the legislation applies exclusively to social media providers above a certain size. Such as having 5 million+ monthly users.
And then they want a foto of your id
Yeah, that's an issue. Though that is also significantly less trustworthy since it only proves possession of an ID, not ownership. Afaik this method is therefore legally insufficient for platforms that need to know their customer (banks, stock exchanges etc.).
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.
It never stops
instead of curbing far right media.
How would you determine what's "right" enough to be banned and what's not? Using some state appointed censors?
Does Friedrich Merz approve -> far right
This lady loves rules
I would rather see them ban all content with minors. Why do kids have to upload anything on the internet? Let platforms enforce it on their end.
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.
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.
EU already has systems for verifying age and the provider sends no identifiable information to the website. While I find age verification problematic and annoying - where credit is due, they seem to have at least made it so that the citizen data is not being uploaded to US servers.
Oh, it will have access to your privacy... Everything as you like.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
