Comment by triceratops
10 hours ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46223051 This one works well. Or at least, as well as age verification for tobacco and alcohol. And equally privacy-preserving.
10 hours ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46223051 This one works well. Or at least, as well as age verification for tobacco and alcohol. And equally privacy-preserving.
Agreed! Great idea. I'll save others the click:
"The insistence on perfect age verification requires ending anonymity. Age verification to the level of buying cigarettes or booze does not. Flash a driver's license at a liquor store to buy a single-use token, good for one year, and access your favorite social media trash. Anonymity is maintained, and most kids are locked out. In the same way that kids occasionally obtain cigs or beer despite safeguards, sometimes they may get their hands on a code. Prosecute anyone who knowingly sells or gives one to a minor."
This does nothing to protect anonymity as you are still assigned a unique code that has been tied to your ID at the liquor store.
Historically liquor store checks were purely visual. These days they are often digital, meaning claims about privacy might (or might not) be outdated. The general principle still applies though. The physical infrastructure already exists, the ID checks do not necessarily need to be digitized or recorded, and even if they are the issued tokens don't need to be tied to the check.
Grocery stores already sell age restricted items as well as gift cards that require activation. The state could issue "age check cards" that you could purchase for some nominal fee. That would require approximately zero additional infrastructure in most of the industrialized world. The efficacy would presumably be equivalent to that for alcohol and tobacco.
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