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Comment by XzAeRosho

3 months ago

I know most of this affects only the US, but I'm wondering where this will go in the EU if the Age Verification Tech goes ahead in America. There's been lots of efforts to increase surveillance disguised as protection for kids in the EU and UK.

The Swiss implementation of eID may be hint that governments may/will take the responsibility to implement and maintain the tech, but the multiple intrusions and lobbying by Palantir and friends in the EU gives me the ick.

115 comments

XzAeRosho

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sschueller  3 months ago

The Swiss eID is open source[1] and it's usage will be limited. Any type of age verification for online service would need go to a vote and would probably loose. "Eigenverantwortung", it is the parents job to look after the kids, not the state.

[1] https://github.com/swiyu-admin-ch

  • kakacik  3 months ago

    You can't just push responsibility for the kids to the parents, where is the world going? This is madness.

    The next thing you are going to claim kids from young age shouldn't have fully unlocked smart phones, shouldn't install any app and so on. Where is the end of this? Are you telling me parents should spend more time with kids, heck even be their role models although it is much harder compared to just giving up on them and let the glorious internet and various fashionate toxic tribes raise them? Blasphemy!!!

    • throwaway173738  3 months ago

      Look, I have a two-year old. But I think it’s possible to do what you want without compromising the privacy of the user. I also don’t think it’s right to require every device to share information that makes my child a target for predators like Meta.

    • andrepd  3 months ago

      Parents shouldn't beat or rape their kids yet many thousands do. Parents should teach their kids about sex yet we still have sex ed in schools. Parents shouldn't deprive their kids of an education yet a minority do for religious our personal reasons; we still have compulsory schooling. Parents shouldn't give cigarretes or alcohol to kids yet we still have laws to prevent their sale to minors.

      I'm always unsure what your sort of argument seems to imply. Kids are not property of their parents and the state routinely makes decisions about children's welfare.

      11 replies →

    • sensanaty  3 months ago

      It really isn't as simple as "Just be a better parent". To use my nephews as an example, my sisters take good care to make sure there's no device usage at home. They've got dumb phones, my sisters don't use their smartphones around the kids either unless it's to take a call, TV/screen time is extremely limited (1h on Saturdays). The older one (12) has an iPhone with parental controls on and tuned to the max, no Youtube or anything like that, and I (the techie in the family) made sure to set it up so it's not easy to circumvent the blocks either.

      Y'know what happens instead? Their friends have unfettered access to smartphones, so my nephews see all the idiotic brainrotting shit on youtube shorts anyways. If not at home, they'll see all the crap we're blocking at school from their friends anyways. Hell, they could just go to the library and access the free public computers there if they wanted to! So my sisters who are responsible and do everything correctly, still suffer, and like any reasonable parent don't want to go to the extreme of locking their children up in cages and not letting them outside of the house.

      There's a reason we don't legislate alcohol and tobacco sales to the same tune of "Just police your kids 24/7 and keep them under lock and key", we instead realize that we can't (or, shouldn't) supervise kids 24/7 day in and day out, and have society-wide rules that forces everyone to not sell booze to anyone underage.

      2 replies →

    • Forgeties79  3 months ago

      I don’t understand why this sentiment keeps coming up when it’s clear parents are expected to do more than ever now.

      Are you going to sit here and tell me your parents were aware of every time you touched a computer or turned on the TV? They vetted everything you consumed? It was a lot easier back then to do. I bet your parents couldn’t even figure out how to block a single channel on their tv, nor did they likely even try. Most of our parents never did.

      3 replies →

    • sjogress  3 months ago

      Raising a kid takes a village.

      It is not like parents are the only influential figures in a kid's upbringing, they are not the only role models, they should not be the only ones paying attention and guiding kids to adulthood.

      Parental control options as they stand are severely lacking. If you add the actively predatory enshittification efforts conducted by seemingly all larges tech companies, you are left either forbidding your kid from accessing anything (this does not work if the kid's friends have access) or allowing far more than you are comfortable with.

      Lets take YouTube as an example. As it stands you have the options of YouTube (with both the most wonderful content available on one hand, and toxicity and brain rot shorts on the other) or YouTube Kids - an app with controls that do not work. How about allowing parents to whitelist content and/or creators instead of letting the algorithms run the show?

      Spotify is another example. How about letting parents control whether the kid's account is plastered with videos, podcasts and AI slop?

      How about your run of the mill browser, letting parents review and allow websites on a case-by-case basis? Maybe my kid is ready for news sites but not Reddit? Maybe 4chan and 8kun are better reserved for the more adventorous adults as opposed to impressionable kids?

      I agree that age verification is a bad solution, but what the hell are parents supposed to reach for? It's not like Silicon Valley are stepping up with any real solutions or even propositions to these problems, it is left for - at best clueless - politicians to navigate the problem space.

      Raising a kid takes a village.

      2 replies →

jwr  3 months ago

The EU, unfortunately, has shown to be very susceptible to this kind of lobbying in the past. We regularly see legislation that is being rammed and rushed through in spite of vocal opposition. I would be very, very worried. (EU citizen)

  • roysting  3 months ago

    The EU puts a nice shine on things, but there are systemic and fundamental characteristics of the EU that not only make it more susceptible to "lobbying" and ignoring the electorate; which are also far more difficult to change by that electorate than in the USA where we still have direct elections of individuals not party lists (in most cases) that cause total loyalty to the party, not the constituency.

  • boondongle  3 months ago

    This is because it's not an EU/Canada/US thing as much as some would like to make it. It's a "losing that one election" thing. "What about the Children" always sells. What the EU/Canada have is that the US got hit with this wave first so they can see the results. That's a data point the American Voter only had in theory, not in example form. The recent uptick of nationalism has people thinking there's some essentialism between states and there really isn't - anyone who's travelled in more places than the city knows it.

  • dotandgtfo  3 months ago

    What examples of this do you have in recent years (post 2016)? The clearest example of lobbying (chat control) has repeatedly been struck down.

  • abc123abc123  3 months ago

    Yep. Sadly the EU is more or less lost, and freedom online will be squashed. I would not be surprised if age verification will tie in with the EU digital wallet, and with the EU democracy shield surveillance project, so that any opposition to Brussels ideological stance will get you disconnected from your bank, money, purchases, and your ability to ID yourself.

    Basically, the chinese, through WTO, managed to utilize corona to show politicians, regardless of color, the enormous power of complete digital control of the population.

    Our spineless and incompetent EU politicians thought it very erotic, and are now ramming it down our throats.

    I don't really see a way to stop this apart from moving to south america or africa, to a small country with a weak government.

drtgh  3 months ago

Not only the US. In the updated post [1] that was deleted at Reddit [2], it is commented there are three firms confirmed operating for Meta in both EU and US jurisdictions,

Firm: Trilligent (APCO Worldwide subsidiary), EU Role: EUR 680K for AI Act, DMA, DSA. US Connection: APCO offices in DC; Meta VP calls them "integrated members of our Meta team".

Firm: White & Case LLP, EU Role: EUR 50-100K. digital markets/services. US Connection: Lead international outside counsel, 70+ lawyer team.

Firm: FTI Consulting Belgium, EU Role: EUR 10-25K. US Connection: Subsidiary of FTI Consulting Inc (NYSE: FCN, HQ Washington DC).

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20260314074025/https://www.reddi...

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rtd51g/update_i_pul...

This sounds like the mere tip of the iceberg, as it is commented that they maintain two separate networks with no overlap (their age verification lobbying goes through local specialists with no international footprint).

Edit:

https://www.lobbyfacts.eu/datacard/trilligent?rid=5168569461...

Trilligent (APCO Worldwide subsidiary), clients for closed financial year, Jan 2024 - Dec 2024,

- meta platforms ireland limited and its various subsidiaries, 50'000€ - 99'999€: EU Green Deal, EU AI Act, the European strategy for a better internet for kids (BIK+), online safety.

- verifymy limited ( age verification business), 0€ - 10'000€: Digital Services Act; eIDAS Regulation; Strategy for a better Internet for kids (BIK+); EU Artificial Intelligence Act; General Data Protection Regulation.

- user rights gmbh, 0€ - 10'000€: Digital Services Act.

pjc50  3 months ago

The UK is absolutely picking the most stupid option (delegate it to US companies doing face recognition)

  • roysting  3 months ago

    Is it stupid or intentional? I believe the latter. There are many layers that these kinds of things go through before they are pushed in that manner and not in a "smart" manner that respects rights of the majority of the population. They are chasing this path for deliberate reasons, regardless of what they may be, or whether you like it or not. Ironically, they can only engage in these "stupid" things because people don't force them to not engage in "stupid things". Silence in consent in these kinds of cases.

  • domh  3 months ago

    I keep emailing my (Labour) MP about this, I suggest you do the same! I get the standard "protecting the children" response. I am not voting Labour again if this madness is still in place (or worse!) at the next GE.

    • pjc50  3 months ago

      MPs are pretty bad at dealing with anything that doesn't come from the party or the newspapers. I'm donating to the Open Rights Group to care about this on my behalf.

      (my MP is SNP, so I benefit from not being in the two party trap)

  • mosura  3 months ago

    Right, if these countries want these laws at least ensure the verification is all done within the country in question and the data never leaves.

    Of course, that defeats the entire point of the exercise.

dylan604  3 months ago

Why do you think the EU would not also jump on the bandwagon if the OS makers have already done the work to comply with US laws? It would be less work on the OS makers to make it for all users rather than trying to determine what jurisdiction the computer was being used and to know if the verification was necessary based on that.

OccamsMirror  3 months ago

This does not only affect the US. They're ramming this kind of bullshit into law in Australia too. As rapidly as they can.

kogasa240p  3 months ago

> The Swiss implementation of eID may be hint that governments may/will take the responsibility to implement and maintain the tech Switzerland will be the exception, not the rule when it comes to internet ID debauchery.

TacticalCoder  3 months ago

> ... but I'm wondering where this will go in the EU

There's more money spent in lobbyism in the EU than anywhere else in the world. Lobbyism and downright corruption: like Qatari bribing EU MEPs [1] and police finding 1 million EUR in bills hidden at a MEP's apartment (in this case a bribe to explain publicly that Qatar is a country oh-so-respectful of human rights).

The EU is way more corrupt than the US and in many EU countries there's little private sector compared to the US. In France for example more than 60% of the GDP is public spending and all the big companies are state or partially state-owned or owned by people very close to the state.

And as to american companies bribing EU politicians: it's nothing new. IBM and Microsoft for example are two names everybody in the business knows have been splurging money to buy influence and illegal kickbacks have always been flying. It's just the way things have always been operating. Today you can very likely add Google and Palantir etc. to the list but it's nothing new.

EU politicians are whores. And cheap whores at that: investigative journalists have shown, in the past, the little amount of money that was needed to buy their votes. Most of them go into politics to extract as much taxpayers money as they can for their own benefit. They of course love to get bribes.

Also to try to not get caught, EU politicians voted themselves special powers and it's very difficult for the regular police to enter official EU buildings. I know an police inspector who went and arrested a MEP for possession of child porn: it required a very long procedure, way longer than usual, and the request of special authorization allowing them to enter the EU parliament (or EU commission, don't remember which but I think it was MEP at the EP).

American companies bribing EU politicians should scare you indeed: it's been ongoing since forever.

> The Swiss implementation of eID may be hint that governments may/will take the responsibility

Switzerland is in Europe but it's not in the EU: it's not representative of the insane corruption present in the EU institutions.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Kaili

nimbius  3 months ago

one hypothesis for why meta wants this is because AI (including its own push for it) has turned much of the internet and its social media platforms into slopfarms and clickbots that advertisers are increasingly moving away from.

The real driver is as always, ad revenue. This time, advertisers want and need to know a real human is engaging the brand and Meta cannot see any other way in sight to assure this fact save for age verification.

this is just the latest evolution of surveillance capitalism.

Cthulhu_  3 months ago

I think age verification laws are good in principle - there's a lot of stuff on the internet that people should be protected from. But it's the manner of age verification that is the issue.

The EU has zero knowledge proof age verification systems, e.g. through your bank, which are secure and don't involve sending a copy of your ID and / or face scan to a dodgy US based 3rd party.

  • djxfade  3 months ago

    I disagree. What if, hear me out, parents actually parent, instead of relegating the parenting to companies, and ruining the internet for the rest of us?

    • orwin  3 months ago

      Of course! Age verification laws for buying alcohol, tobacco (and firearms in the US) should be removed! They ruin our experience.

      The same way, keeping driver license behind an age gate is unnecessary, parents should parents! I was driving tractors at 12yo, why couldn't I drive a car?

      Parents should be the one responsible if they give money or a car to their kid

      1 reply →

    • wek  3 months ago

      I'm concerned about these laws and their implications for privacy, but as a parent, I'm not sure what you mean to say parents should parent. How? What should the parent do? How would you recommend a parent protect a 13 year old who spends their time in their room and out with their friends on their phones?

      10 replies →

    • SkyBelow  3 months ago

      My main issue with this argument is that we never applied it to any other age gate created in the past. Why? Maybe part of it was control, but also because we know parents will fail their kids, and there were cases bad enough in the past that society decided to step in and protect kids even when parents fail.

      If we really embraced this logic, then should we look at returning to the laws from before the 'protect the children' push of the 20th century. Compare this to some countries where kids can go buy beer. I've read stories from people in less regulated countries who use to buy beer for their parents when they were underage, and nothing was stopping them from buying it from themselves if their parents allowed it (or failed to stop it). Even a concept like child labor, why should we regulate that out to companies to control instead of depending upon parents to parent? When you consider web access as a person having some sort of transaction with a company, it generalizes to a very similar position of if a parent or the government should monitor that relationship for harm.

    • raverbashing  3 months ago

      This is a common argument, but the problem is the kids who have deadbeat parents

      Or even kids whose parents don't have the technical knowledge needed

      Yes I do agree the responsibility is with the parents, but it's these kids who are majoritarily affected by (bad internet actors) AND (bad offline actors)

    • pzo  3 months ago

      agree, also they should take into account that their children will be eventually an adult and will be living in such system. Goverments should only focus on educating parents (available tools, recommendations) and maybe provide some open source tooling for parents.

      2 replies →

    • pbhjpbhj  3 months ago

      Anyone should be allowed to buy/do anything at any age, why have any restrictions that's a parent's responsibility! /s

      A proper society raises their new generations.

      Yes, rights and responsibilities fall mostly to parents, but I see no reason to make licentious activities difficult for parents to inhibit.

      What is it you want to do on the internet?

      We can have systems that allow anonymity (between client and server), but still put hardcore porn, gore, financial frauds and such out of reach of those without proof they're over 18.

      Now, don't get me wrong, Palantir and it's ilk are a danger to society. But just because the military-industrial complex wants to use any excuse to control people, doesn't mean all of those excuses are wrong.

  • abc123abc123  3 months ago

    Zero knowledge is not true. All chains rely, ultimately, on a place where ID:s are stored, and from there, they will leak. That place can also be engineered to undo the zero knowledge design. Couple that with the already in place, surveillance by ISP:s within the EU, and it becomes obvious that zero knowledge is a scam, and only valid under unreal conditions that will never apply in the EU, and only in isolation, and not looking at the entire system.

    • tzs  3 months ago

      > Zero knowledge is not true. All chains rely, ultimately, on a place where ID:s are stored, and from there, they will leak.

      All of the systems I'm aware of rely on someplace your ID is already stored.

  • SiempreViernes  3 months ago

    I think these laws are a poor second-best substitute for proper moderation on the big content platforms.

    As it stands one should be happy if Meta catches most calls for the extermination of an ethnicity on its platform, that they would provide capabilities that allows a kid to protect themselves from bullying or grooming is just unimaginable.

  • Larrikin  3 months ago

    The US has a large unbanked population that is currently fighting the trend of places discovering they can get rid of undesirable poorer customers by refusing to accept cash. These people would then lose access to many services on the Internet now due to parents refusing to parent.

  • worldsayshi  3 months ago

    I expect the internet to be overrun with noise due to bots. So I have a feeling that eIDs are inevitable as a solution in the long run. If that is the case shouldn't we push for zero knowledge solutions?