Comment by kdheiwns
1 day ago
Because people share phones with their kids. It's not rare or even mildly unusual. The problem isn't that the app needs to solve this. The problem is the app is useless, along with this whole bizarre "need for age verification" plot that poofed out of existence simultaneously around the whole globe mysteriously a few months ago.
Well, reality called and says: Like ID, drivers license, credit cards and guns: Phones are sth. you dont just "share" with your kids. Also there is an option to guard the ID App with an additional PIN/Biometric.
That's not reality for many of us. I don't consider my phone a secure device by any means. It has nothing on it that I'd regard as something I'd need to guard against my family.
I know a fair number of especially elderly people who want to disable PIN and bio-metrics from their phone, because they view it as a pain to deal with.
PINs can also be guessed or someone might look you over the shoulder and steal it that way. Many phones still doesn't have biometrics, or people don't want to use it.
Our realities might be different, but in my reality a cell phone, which you almost by definition brings with you out in the world, should never be considered a secure device.
Oh man, if the kid gets hold of both of their parents phones with login, they could divorce them. I don't have kids yet, so this might change, but I would not give them login and / or unsupervised access.
I don't think you can guess pins, as the phones locks after a few failed attempts.
> It has nothing on it that I'd regard as something I'd need to guard against my family.
It has the internet on it.
You keep using the term “secure” that it sounds like you think education is like a prison sentence. You’re not doing this for security but for safety. A stair gate or drawer child-proofing lock are by no means secure but you use them anyway for the child’s safety.
You can’t just leave every dangerous thing out in the open because you “view it as a pain to deal with” storing them safely and then blame everyone else for the situation that follows.
Our realities might be different but in my reality if you put 0 (zero) effort to keep some critical things safely away from your child because it’s too much of a hassle to do it, or they’ll get around that anyway, etc. then you’re failing your children.
7 replies →
A phone isn't going to run off the road and kill 7 people. This is nonsense and you know it.
And yes, phones are something parents do "just" share with their kids because nobody is bizarre enough to look at a phone the same way as a gun or a car. It's the YouTube device that can talk to grandma. All you have to do to see proof that it's something people "just" share is to walk into a grocery store and look at parents pushing kids in carts while those kids watch videos. 25 years ago those phones were Game Boys. Nobody is seeing them as a gun. That's the most disconnected from reality take I've seen in my life.
Whats the diff between today giving you phone to your 8-year and making sure /having trust that they do not use it to e.g. order a new toy from Amazon and tomorrow that he is not using to verify they are an adult? I mean, most things today (like accessing porn, buying alcohol) do not require any extra age verification. They can just do it using your phone/accounts.
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In theory, maybe yes. But in practice people do share their phones with their kids.
Sure and when they do that they share unfiltered access to their banking apps, email, messages, the entire intent including unwholesome bits etc.
Not much the government should or could do about that - it’s a parental decision.
That's why a lot of apps have a secondary login (PIN code, biometrics).
My kid can take my phone and not be able to transfer any money form my bank account, because it's protected by pin and biometrics.
That's a solved problem and making an immense vulnerability out of it is silly.
Exactly. "Age verification" is the "think of the children" marketing campaign for "identity verification". Governments don't like anonymity; it makes it harder to find those they consider enemies. But it's hard to market something people don't want and get no benefit from. So, you dress it up in fear and make it easy to villify people who argue against it.
Stop with the scaremongering.
This is a reference app implementation that uses a detailed framework which explicitly has as a core tenet double blindness. The place you prove your age to has no idea about anything other than you being of age, and the thing you use to prove your age has no idea about where you're using that proof.
Why do I need to prove my age again?
Right because a child might get online with a phone or computer and see something bad.
I think you should take your own advice: >Stop with the scaremongering.
If you trust mega corps and the government when they say they're not accessing and monitoring your personal info, then I think that's very interesting.