I can't believe it took this long.

We have mandatory identification for all kinds of things that are illegal to purchase or engage in under a certain age. Nobody wants to prosecute 12 year old kids for lying when the clicked the "I am at least 13 years old" checkbox when registering an account. The only alternative is to do what we do with R-rated movies, alcohol, tobacco, firearms, risky physical activities (i.e. bungee jumping liability waiver) etc... we put the onus of verifying identification on the suppliers.

I've always imagined this was inevitable.

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thewebguyd 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The problem is the implementation is hasty.

When I go buy a beer at the gas station, all I do is show my ID to the cashier. They look at it to verify DOB and then that's it. No information is stored permanently in some database that's going to get hacked and leaked.

We can't trust every private company that now has to verify age to not store that information with whatever questionable security.

If we aren't going to do a national registry that services can query to get back only a "yes or no" on whether a user is of age or not, then we need regulation to prevent the storage of ID information.

We should still be able to verify age while remaining psuedo-anonymous.

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dragonwriter 10 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

> If we aren't going to do a national registry that services can query to get back only a "yes or no" on whether a user is of age or not

And note that if we are, the records of the request to that database are an even bigger privacy timebomb than those of any given provider, just waiting for malicious actors with access to government records.

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criddell an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> When I go buy a beer at the gas station, all I do is show my ID to the cashier. They look at it to verify DOB and then that's it. No information is stored permanently in some database that's going to get hacked and leaked.

Beer, sure. But if you buy certain decongestants, they do log your ID. At least that's the case in Texas.

	▲	dragonwriter 9 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> But if you buy certain decongestants, they do log your ID. Yeah, but many people don't actually think War on Drugs policies are a model for civil liberties that should be extended beyond that domain (or, in many cases, even tolerated in that domain.) That policy has been effective, I guess, in promoting the sales of alternative “decongestants” (that don't actually work), though it did little to curb use and harms from the drugs it was supposed to control by attacking supply.

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xp84 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

We should easily be able to, but the problem of tech illiteracy is probably our main barrier. To build such a system you’d need to issue those credentials to the end users. Those users in turn would eagerly believe conspiracy theories that the digital ID system was actually stealing their data or making it available to MORE parties instead of fewer (compared to using those ID verification services we have today).

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tavavex an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I don't think that's quite right. The age-gating of the internet is part of a brand new push, it's not just patching up a hole in an existing framework. At least in my Western country, all age-verified activities were things that could've put someone in direct, obvious danger - drugs, guns, licensing for something that could be dangerous, and so on. In the past, the 'control' of things that were just information was illusory. Movie theaters have policies not to let kids see high-rated movies, but they're not strictly legally required to do so. Video game stores may be bound by agreements or policy not to sell certain games to children, but these barriers were self-imposed, not driven by law. Pornography has really been the only exception I can think of. So, demanding age verification to be able to access large swaths of the internet (in some cases including things as broad as social media, and similar) is a huge expansion on what was in the past, instead of just them closing up some loopholes.