You already provided proof of a living legal identity when you got the ID, and it already expires to make you provide proof again every few years.

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heavyset_go 6 days ago | parent [-]

That's not not the kind of proof of life the government and companies want online. They want to make sure their video identification 1) is of a living person right now, and 2) that living person matches their government ID.

It's a solution to the "grandma died but we've been collecting her Social Security benefits anyway", or "my son stole my wallet with my ID & credit card", or (god forbid) "We incapacitated/killed this person to access their bank account using facial ID".

It's also a solution to the problem advertisers, investors and platforms face of 1) wanting huge piles of video training data for free and 2) determining that a user truly is a monetizable human being and not a freeloader bot using stolen/sold credentials.

	▲	palata 6 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> That's not not the kind of proof of life the government and companies want online. Well that's your assumption about governments, but it doesn't have to be true. There are governments that don't try to exploit their people. The question is whether such governments can have technical solutions to achieve that or not (I'm genuinely interested in understanding whether or not it's technically feasible).
	▲	debugnik 6 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It's the kind of proof my government already asks of me to sign documents much, much more important than watching adult content, such as social security benefits.