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Comment by sippeangelo

3 months ago

Please explain how opposition to privacy invasive solutions result in even more privacy invasive solutions being implemented? Is it purely out of spite from the lawmakers? This logic doesn't follow.

11 comments

sippeangelo

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derektank  3 months ago

It’s obviously worse for your privacy to have third parties handle full images of your drivers license or video of your entire face, which can then be leaked, rather than using a zero knowledge proof that only sends e.g. a birth year. And no, it’s not spite, it’s incoherence. Lawmakers are single minded seekers of re-election to a first degree approximation and will do things to get votes, even if those things don’t logically make sense together, such as requiring age verification without providing the tools for companies to abide by the law themselves.

  • plagiarist  3 months ago

    US lawmakers are single-minded seekers of lobbying and insider trading money, they will sign and trade on whatever ALEC hands them so they receive more money.

hananova  3 months ago

Because we’re currently still in the phase where lawmakers are telling tech companies “please find a solution for this issue.” At some point, as has happened in the past with other issues, this will change to “solve this issue, here’s exactly how you have to do it.”

dylan604  3 months ago

The logic not flowing is the point. People against a federal ID say it is government overreach into state's rights. They consider it the feds invading citizen's rights. They have no need, as it is the purview of the states. So in lieu of a federal ID, private companies are coming up with privacy invading techniques to attempt to verify age. How would one be okay with a private company's invasion of privacy yet not the government's? An invasion of privacy is an invasion of privacy regardless of the one doing the invading.

  • zimpenfish  3 months ago

    > An invasion of privacy is an invasion of privacy regardless of the one doing the invading.

    Technically, yes, but one party (e.g. USGOV) has many more strands that it can weave together into a larger coherent picture than the other (e.g. Meta).

    Also one party has guns and an almost blanket immunity to using them on people it deems it does not like via its privacy violations.

    That probably tips the scales for some people.

    • dylan604  3 months ago

      Up until the socials get their own security forces that are deployed as the algo tells them. They have enough money to be the next Pinkertons. /s

      But at this point, the government is getting the data from private companies. So if the private companies were not gathering the data, the government would not have such easy access. So I'm much more concerned about private companies for that reason. Yes, the government can do more things to you physically, but they are too dependent on what private companies provide

  • nickff  3 months ago

    >”How would one be okay with a private company's invasion of privacy yet not the government's? An invasion of privacy is an invasion of privacy regardless of the one doing the invading.”

    ‘Invasion’ is doing a lot of work in your comment, and I don’t think there is a clear and widely agreed upon definition of what constitutes an ‘invasion of privacy’. If you have such a definition, please do share it.

cycomanic  3 months ago

Ignoring the reality that some system of age (and ID verification, for certain tasks) system is desired by a significant portion of the population, and does have utility (despite the shouts for "just parent your children") is simply sticking your head in the sand. So by opposing any solution (even solutions that preserve privacy, like zero-knowledge), you make privacy concerns seem unreasonable and weaken stances opposing the more privacy invasive solutions.