Online age-verification tools for child safety are surveilling adults

Seems like if you just disclose and make assurances that "you take security seriously" then it's fine.

HIPAA doesn't have a private cause of action so if a violation happens, it's a wealth transfer to the government, it doesn't mean anything to you or any individual.

And most companies can simply price it in as cost of doing business at this point.

unfortunately, even if the fine seems harsh, if it is less than the profits generated the fine is an operating expense and not a deterrent.

>cards don't work perfectly as age verification either.

there are 0 "perfect" age verification systems.

plenty of minors can have their brother/sister/parents supply their id, or do the verification video. the on-device verification discord rolled out was, within hours, broken. i remember news reports of kids submitting photos of their dogs and being verified as of-age.

credit card solves most of the problem with much less downside than submitting my face (i am already okay putting my card info into most sites)

Prepaid cards can't masquerade as credit cards as there are easy ways to differentiate them (the numbers have meaning) and a minor getting access to the family credit card is the parents giving them permission. I'm not convinced credit card for age verification is a good solution for all cases but for cases where you've already used a credit card to access the service it would be perfect.

Probably because the transfer of accounts (typically for reasons of better spamming, but in this case for adult access) is possible.

However, that makes me wonder what mechanism might "unverify" an account holder's age upon transfer. I suppose it's simply a need to re-verify (take a new photo) upon every login, but then folks could transfer the session cookie to avoid needing the new owner to perform a login (unless a new device ID/fingerprint makes the old cookie useless).

Age of account was sufficient for Google and third-party services for verification until recently. My gmail account is almost 22 years old, in continuous use. I have a credit card on file with Google Pay. Why would I need to submit a photo to engage with a private service, outside of volunteering to help train a surveillance apparatus?

Is there any forum short of a senate subcommittee that the public can ask companies these questions? The silence is deafening.

It's not like they were really doing a very good job anyway. My data has been leaking for two decades now.

How much money did the CFPB actually give back to wronged consumers?

Don’t forget the second amendment.

whats incredible to me are how many useful idiots out there STILL fall for it.

___ said hamas beaheaded 40 babies and that turned out to be a complete fabrication. That fake info was used in part to justify killing thousands of kids in ____

meanwhile the recent strike on Iran resulted in 80 little girls getting killed (with plenty of evidence) and its swept under the rug while we get blasted about the 7 soldiers that died.

Know they sheep, the better to keep them penned.

Exactly my point.. And all the industry experts who they must have consulted in to write the laws are coincidently invested in personal data harvesting. Who could have foreseen this happening.

Now do Covid… tracking the non-compliant is surely the smaller task.

The same way you prevented adults buying pornography for kids prior to the web, and the way you prevent adults from buying beer for kids now.

Namely, you don't prevent it (I was 11 when I first saw hardcore pornography, on a VHS tape, at a sleepover party), but it does place a (surmountable) barrier in the way, which will reduce access to some degree. The degree to which that happens depends on a lot of things that are hard to predict. We have culturally normalized access to a lot of things for children, and reversing that will likely take more than just changes to a law.

Sometimes this question comes up with an implied subtext of: "It needs to be bulletproof."

It really doesn't, and especially if the ostensible rationale is blocking the ills of social media. If your friends aren't there, there's less motive to waste a bunch of allowance-money dealing with a sketchy adult to get there.

If it's good enough for beer and cigarettes it's good enough for social media.

> presenting only ID to the cashier the same way as buying alcohol

Selling alcohol to minors is illegal in the UK. Some do circumvent this by various means (e.g. fake ID or having an adult purchase on their behalf, both of which are also illegal), but the same is already true for the current age verification system.

Same way you prevent selling beer to kids. Impose harsh penalties for violators.

How do you prevent kids verifying as adults?

That's the same question.

Meanwhile apparently 70% of Australian under-16's retrained/regained access to social media.

See, even intrusive, surveillance and privacy-busting methods don't work.

Aside from the concept of adults masquerading as non-adults, nothing so long as those spaces are moderated fully. I have no problem with skipping the verification, but I do question the moderation of most services.

The problems start when the space become not-for-children and identity validation is mandatory to use them, which will exclude people like me who categorically refuse to hand over personal secrets in order to have access. It does not warrant the inherent risk involved with granting access to personal details unrelated to the service offered. I reckon this will happen when someone decides it's better commercially to make a service adult-only than to moderate non-adult accounts. It's a slippery slope, and a predictable next step once adult have become accustomed to handing over papers for some services to have to do it for many, if not all.

Well, ad are supposed to be different for children, right? So in theory we would get less ads by being ID'd as a child. Now, this would probably cause a new law where they would allow child ads...

Not unless you actually meant 16<x<18 today and >18 tomorrow.

You can be 30 and verify >16 today and >18 tomorrow, obviously without being 18.

which is nothing in comparison to leaking all of personal information

you can also introduce some jitter like changing age range only once a week/month/year for everyone

If you want privacy you need to fuzz the transition. Many platforms support that today. Or you can create a separate account when you graduate.

But also, knowing someone's birthday without trying it to other information greatly reduces the risk of harm.

> there will need to be trust at some point in the system

This is why you don't have a technologically effective solution, here. "Trust" in this situation is a weasel word for surveillance, just like the pinkie promise that Client Side Scanning would never be abused by the government. Trust would not stop child abuse, or meaningfully prevent access to online pornography. Trust is not a technical solution, it's a political goal.

If you have a productive suggestion, now is the time to voice it. All of the non-technical hand wringing is not helpful either, and feeds into the slippery slope logic that HN should be avoiding.

Not sending your ID to remote server is intuitively correct. What if they will force you to do it though?

Is your wallet big enough to afford to say no and unplug? Mine is but what about the 99%?

That's technically true right now, but I keep holding out hope that these sorts of draconian restrictions will drive even harder to stamp out privacy-preserving solutions. I'm old enough to remember the days before the internet well, when _everything_ was made for children because you never knew who was and wasn't. I was afraid that legislation would drive the internet back to public television (as it seems to be determined to do) and I was really grateful for Freenet when it was first announced. It never took off, but not because it didn't work, just because at the time not enough people thought it was necessary. Maybe this will be the push to get enough people on board to make it (or something like it) feasible? Anonymous communication is a technically solvable problem, as long as enough people agree that it's worth pursuing.

And old people will do stupid things as downloading APKs as well. But in both cases, the smart people and the careful people have to pay the cost of supporting the in-experienced whether via constant surveillance or via no more accessing apps to your own computer or phone

They're used for more than just anonymization. You know, their original purpose.

> The fact that many independent national newspapers (including this article from CNBC) are openly calling-out the surveillance state and entering the debate into the public conscience should tell everyone that USA (and the West) is very different from Russia or China or Dubai.

So, the only benefit of the USA is that some media can still complain. And the regime just ignores and does what they want. Regardless dems or reps, they criticize the reduction of freedoms when they are in opposition, but as soon as they grab power, they keep reducing freedoms. It's like they are all just puppets of someone you can't even name without being called names.

> USA is not perfect, but at least is has active public discourse. We can openly (and legally) debate these things, and if we convince enough people, then we can change them.

Yep, they convinced you you are free because you can argue while keeping more and more freedoms and rights from you.

Today, the only difference between Western and Eastern regimes is that one side chooses the "Brave New World" way and the other the "1984" way. But eventually, they'll all converge into Zamyatin's "We" kind of dystopia that inspired both of these.

In the US. There is no discourse and active criminalization of the people protesting pipelines, neutral markets and internet, right to own, etc. Even right to protest is under attack. What discourse? Private equity and monopolies is what everybody is willing to give away their comfort to. The effort of raising your own kids? Nah. I want govt to nanny me and everybody else. Better policing? Nah. We need the quick solution and surveill the neighborhoods. Better get back on your feet programs and social safety net for people needing it? Nah get off my backyard and take those homeless with you.

It is constantly people wanting convenience and vertical integration in favor of homegrown human solutions and then complaining that their rights are not met because of course they aren't. Corporations never cared for people.

Idk I feel like I writing a documentary. And not a response now

Active public discourse seems to have not made even a slight dent in the growth of surveillance in the last 25 years.

A circus performer kept a troupe of monkeys and fed them 10 nuts each day. He fell on hard times and told the monkeys: 'from now on I can only give you seven nuts a day. I will give you three in the morning and four in the afternoon.' The monkey s were furious and raised a great clamor. 'Very well,' said the man, 'I will give you 4 nuts in the morning and 3 in the afternoon.' The monkeys were delighted.

>The fact that many independent national newspapers (including this article from CNBC) are openly calling-out the surveillance state and entering the debate into the public conscience should tell everyone that USA (and the West) is very different from Russia or China or Dubai.

For how much longer will they stay independent? Media empires love to consolidate; most of the largest video services will soon be owned by a fan of govt surveillance.

Somehow we have more public “discourse” than ever with less public “debate” than ever. People just yelling rude names at each other and repeating nonsense talking points, while the trajectory of what’s actually happening continues to worsen. I include Congress and the executive branch in this characterization.

Limbaugh > Fox media broke public discourse decades ago

Turns out open debate doesn't matter in a post truth society. They don't stop CNBC because they know it doesn't matter how they report anymore. The propaganda is so ingrained that facts won't deter the masses anymore.

> The fact that many independent national newspapers (including this article from CNBC) are openly calling-out the surveillance state and entering the debate into the public conscience...

LMAO! Bro/sis/secret third thing, you won't even start to believe how brave our press was when Putin had not consolidated his power yet. Ever heard of NTV? Or maybe Sobesednik, which lasted until 2023 I think? TV 6 or TV2 perhaps?

Seriously, this better-than-thou attitude will be your downfall one day. I know it was ours.

Engagement is not discourse.

This is the core strategy of the alt-right playbook. By replacing discourse with engagement, the logical structure of politics becomes meaningless, and victory becomes automatic.

The playbook worked. The alt-right is in power now. We won't get the power back by playing the very game they destroyed.

So yes, this started as a different situation, but in the end, power is power.

[dead]

In Russia, China, the people are under threat of literal torture and murder.

You gave up way before that

See also "boiling frogs".

But then I'm replying to @mr_toad so you probably knew that already.

So you’ll just not use Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, or Android? In other words, you’ll just not use any computers? Seems nonsensical.

> Which is to NOT use those platforms that require age verification.

That is getting harder and harder. Platforms that are not susceptible to age verification (yet?) are on their way out - when have you written an email the last time for personal (i.e. non-work, order or customer support related) reasons? A physical letter [1]? The (root) cause is, centralized platforms like Whatsapp are much much more convenient and on top of that network effects apply - when 90% of your social connections use Whatsapp exclusively, it's hard to not use Whatsapp as well.

And then you got digitalization of government services and banking. More and more governments push for the removal of paper forms and require a web service. Banking regulations enforce 2FA, which almost always comes in the form of a phone app. The web services require a browser and an OS, which may require age verification sooner than later (see the recent spat about California's law), and the phone apps are only available for the walled gardens of unrooted, Play Store certified Apple and Android phones - that can and will be forced to verify ages as well.

Hard cash is out as well, many governments have set hard caps on cash transactions due to "anti money laundering" laws, in other countries you need to have a bank account to pay for mandatory things like taxes or public broadcast fees [2], and an increasing number of vendors refuses to accept cash as well due to the associated handling cost and risk of fraud (i.e. employee theft) and robbery.

That last point alone will make it impossible to survive in society without engaging with one or more of the walled gardens.

And mercy be upon you if the US Government decides to put you on one of their black lists. No more banking, even as an European, because everything touches VISA/MC/SWIFT, your cloud accounts (and with it your phone and app stores), all gone, you are now an unperson [3].

[1] Some countries are already shutting down postal services over that, e.g. Denmark: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/21/denmark-postno...

[2] https://www.verbraucherzentrale-niedersachsen.de/themen/rund...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_14203

Yeo, convenience is the most powerful "drug" we have ever come up with. We need our next hit... Now!

China has much lower crime, cheaper healthcare and is making progress in other aspects.

We’re rapidly regressing into prideful ignorance. People are being encouraged to drink raw milk and fear vaccines.

19 century illnesses are making a resurgence.

Citizens are being indefinitely detained for “looking” like immigrants.

Yeah unfortunately I suspect the authoritarian surveillance is the whole point. Protecting children is obviously not a priority for the Epstein class.

It was indescribably pathetic watching HN users of all people defend Client Side Scanning and Bitlocker flaws. The only people qualified to logically protest have already drank the Kool-aid.

It will live on, encoded in the weights of LLMs

The world is lost, I don't think it is any better in non-western countries.

I hear this point of view, that mass incarceration is slavery with extra steps. But a (very quick and not in depth) google search shows that the cost to keep a person in prison for a year is $60-100k. And as far as I can tell in the cases where prisoners are laboring, while for admittedly shit pay, its not in $50k/year let alone one where where a profit would be returned for the "owners/jailers"

Now, if you're saying that the slavery comparison is more in that prisoners are legit balance sheet items for private prisoners to collect tax money? Well there is an argument there to be sure. But this seems like a structural problem. The existence of private prisons at all.

None of that is arguing in favor of crazy sentences for non-violent crime, however directly comparing it to chattel slavery confuses the argument against mass incarceration.

Let’s not get carried away. Real people fought and died for things we have.

It is both scary to watch and yet fun to be alive to see it come to fruition.

It is occurring in every dimension, including the ability to track who buys and sells with crypto currencies along with the ability to punish or reward people based on ai hardware software infrastructure deployments.

> shouldn't have to leak my residential address to private businesses to register to vote

If the 'SAVE America Act' passes, you're going to be open to leaking a heck of a lot more than that, and it'll all go in to a national database.

This is HN mate.

It's full of people from ad-tech who believe data protection is the enemy and the GDPR is a European conspiracy against growth.

You should learn to simply bend over and grab your ankles with both hands whenever they (or anybody else) asks for your personal data.

EDIT: and predictable 'drive-by' downvotes from those in the industry too lazy to try and defend their position and write a rebuttle!

> with various anti-democratic (small "d")

Yes, because the designers of the system were well-read and understood that raw democracy, like oligarchy and autocracy, is something that republics devolve into.

Rule by the many is great, but the historical evidence shows it's clearly unstable. The Constitution is designed to maximize the advantages while hedging against its inherent instability.

> The game is rigged in favor of big money and has always been so rigged.

I would say the game is rigged in favor of production, of which capital is a big part, because those who don't produce end up being governed by those who do.

Years ago is different to now. Many places in Russia or China, Dubai etc is very livable. Even lots of people are going about their lives normally in Dubai - these days.

China is definitely not so shit like portrayed by western media. At the same time London is also not run by Islamic Extremists as portrayed by perhaps the top media station in USA.

> Sad part is that probably the poor (everywhere) are the on

totally true.

Having also lived in a communist country, I agree that 35 years ago the difference was huge.

Unfortunately, since around 2000 the differences have become less and less every year, so what has remained now is a very small fraction of what was a quarter of century ago.

The socialist economies from the past were just the extreme form of capitalist economies, where monopolies controlled every market. The western economies are quickly approaching this stage.

Extreme surveillance of everybody was how the communist elites preserved their power, but the surveillance was actually illegal, because the constitution "guaranteed" the secret of communications, e.g. of mail and telephone. While the secret police or equivalent organizations did not care about what is legal or not, they were nonetheless forced to keep appearances and do their work covertly. They also did not have enough resources to process in a centralized form all the data collected by surveillance.

Now, in the western countries surveillance has been legalized, so the governmental agencies no longer bother to hide their activities. They also now have the means to spy on an unlimited number of people among hundreds of millions or even billions, so surveillance is already worse than it was in the communist countries, even if the consequences of being spied are not yet so severe (hopefully).

I think that's the problem, the greatest generation were sort of a moral compass in the US (like it or not, they obv had their own problems - eg. racism). Without them to scold us, it seems we're all too infantile/selfish/greedy and can't even show each other basic respect or do something as simple as stop at a red light. Sure, the internet and social media accelerate it but I think there's also a fundamental loss of parental figures that went out with that generation too.

As a Gen X'er myself I know I grew up respecting the hell out of older people, especially 70+ ages. The past couple of decades as that cohort churns, I can't say the same. It's more of a case by case basis now, many of them seem outright evil in their self-righteousness. They all seem angry and ready to fight in any passing interaction (granted, I live in Texas where most of them are amped on FoxNews, too) and that's not how it used to be. They used to be the friendliest cohort alive, hell when I was maybe 10-14 I even used to volunteer at senior living homes just to hang out and chat with them and can't imagine anyone wanting to do that now.

Deregulation of financial markets and glorification of monetary wealth above all else was also their doing? Gen X were kids when Carter and Regan sent us down the path we’re on now.

We are not really better. Chat control being pushed in the EU. The Online Safety Act already passed in the UK, and now legislation to give politicians the power to decide what websites need age verification. Crony capitalism/technofedualism/whatever all over the place. Hate speech laws that are often politicised and give the police and prosecutors a lot of room to target people they dislike (something the US has constitutional protections against). Extremist parties such as PVV and AfD getting a significant proportion of the vote.

I dunno, the UK seems to be doing its best to outcrazy the US

> It's negatively impacting people and servers that have no interest in having anything adult on them.

So who should police that? I am in certain communities that try to be stricter on moderation (which I love!) but it's hard work, lots of people trying to be at the edge of rules (with normal things like swearing, insults, etc.).

Whoever labels adult only and does not care is not wishing to put the effort to police that it actually is not.

Personally I do generally mind much more annoying, aggressive, stupid posters (in various channels), than the fact that I am not allowed to post some stupid adult-looking meme.

Okay? Then we’ll deal with that if it happens. If it does happen then other services will have the same requirements.

It will be when everyone starts leaking from the big players. Age verification will make software development impossible or be impossible to implement without huge investment.

> for literally no gain to you whatsoever?

I literally gain from using their services for communication and voice chat with friends.

“Literally no gain whatsoever” is completely wrong.

I’ve tried Matrix/Element for years. I’m still in some IRC channels. I know what the alternatives are I can confidently say I’m gaining value from the ease in which Discord allows us to voice chat, screen share, and invite less technical people to join.

> ...for now ... What stops them from changing this in the future?

Then I’ll deal with that situation if it arises.