Comment by blendo
8 days ago
I need to prove my age to buy a lottery ticket or purchase alcohol. The merchant typically doesn't save my id info.
What if I could purchase a unique QR code, good for maybe a month, that I could use online to prove my age?
There'd still be problems in the US with 1st amendment issues, but I'd at least remain anonymous.
Why not just parental control software?
I don't really understand why every adult should need to jump through hoops because parents won't spend 5 minutes enabling it on their kid's devices.
Hell, modern parental control software with an image classifier is arguably better than these online age verification systems since it works with anything that appears onscreen.
This is the exact system I suggested to a friend. I don't mind having to 'prove' my age, but I do not really want a third party to have my identifiable information nor do I really want the Government knowing what fetishes I may or may not have.
For a digital only solution, I think the best system would be some form of public-private key attestation:
The government advertises their public keys for 18+ verification.
A website generates a unique token - this token is then taken by the user and submitted to the government receiving a signed attestation. This can then be given back to the website to prove the user is 18. It only has to be done once per profile and no information is shared between the Government and the website on who is who.
Unless of course the token is saved by both the website and government in some forever database and then a lookup is done.
Another solution could be a timed/signed token produced by the government that has no input from the website. But this still has the downside that this could just be saved by both parties and in future you could identified if both sides compare data.
> what if i could purchase a unique qr code, good for maybe a month, that I could use online to probe my age?
I can already smell a business opportunity to start illegally reselling/dealing age-verification qr codes.
That also happens with alcohol and tobacco. Cops can run sting operations to catch illegal dealers. But IRL id verification removes easy access for most children while preserving the privacy of adults.
It's called selling a fake ID, which is already illegal.
Yes, this is possible, and not dissimilar to proposals making progress elsewhere, notably in the EU: https://ageverification.dev/av-doc-technical-specification/d....
There's a bunch of other "digital wallet" development going on in general, effectively providing digital certificate-backed identity documents and similar (driving licenses, passports). The plan for age verification is that these wallets will also be able to provide a cryptographically signed attestation of age (signed by an EU verification authority, i.e. your id-issuing government org) but with no other personal info included. Then you can present this to anybody, and they can independently verify the signature to confirm it's a recent proof-of-age attestation without knowing anything else about you.
It's still fairly early - lots of blueprints and proof-of-concepts, not yet rolled out anywhere AFAICT - but looks like a reasonable solution I think. In practice I suspect most people's experience will be a government-backed mobile app that you authenticate with once, and then it can handle verification requests on-device or show a QR code that other people can scan & verify.
Because it’s none of your or anybody else’s business what I do online. Don’t negotiate with terrorists.
This reminds me that when payment processors cut off an adult site in Japan, they were able to fall back on users paying for points in cash at convenience stores instead or something like that.
Not a bad system really? Pseudo anonymity and avoids some third party tech firm getting involved?
How is this different from a VPN? You don’t know that the purchaser is the user.
> that I could use online to prove my age
This is just moving personal data responsibilities from service providers (e.g. porn sites) to the central authority (QR code maker and verifier). Unless there is a semi-anonymous way of purchasing age proofs, e.g. over the counter.
I don't think anyone has a problem with verifying their age.
What many people do have a problem with is requiring disclosure of unmodifiable biometric data and government documents that once "hacked"/sold into the data collection pipeline becomes forever tainted and easily stolen.
You can't "reset my password" with biometric data once a malicious actor has it
I have a problem verifying my age or any other piece of information that isn’t critical to whatever service you are providing to me. Beyond that it’s none of your or anyone else’s damn business. If you don’t have a legally issued warrant then leave me the hell alone. This isn’t an area for compromise.
> The merchant typically doesn't save my id info.
Don't give adtech any ideas.