You're seriously proposing letting governments decide which of their citizens are allowed unrestricted access to the internet?

Of all the 3rd parties who could be responsible for this, I trust the government the least.

But really the best solution here is no third party. The device owner (e.g. parents) should be responsible for setting the user's age when setting up the device. Anything that tries to take that responsibility away from parents and give it to a third party is necessarily going to be highly authoritarian; putting that third party in the role of parent for everyone, adults included.

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gambiting 8 hours ago | parent [-]

>>Of all the 3rd parties who could be responsible for this, I trust the government the least.

Really? can you name any 3rd party you'd trust with this more than your own government?

Given that you know, the government already has all of this info on us. This isn't a choice between "the government doesn't know how old I am" and "the government has all the info on me". Governments usually already do. They have enough data already to issue such proof just by the virtue of us living in the country. Tax records, birth records, driving licences, council taxes, passport info, medical information - there's more than enough to give me a cryptographic certificate that says "yes, gambiting is definitely 18 years old" without me having to do anything. Compared to literally any third party that cannot do any of this, unless they buy my marketing cookies on the open market or something, or yes - I actually go out of my way to give them my passport/credit card/selfies etc.

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kelvinjps10 7 hours ago | parent [-]

It’s not really about the info but restricting access to people. Imagine they restrict access to social medial to people with different political opinions as the ruling party in the government

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gambiting 7 hours ago | parent [-]

The whole idea is that the government gives you a cryptographic token that proves you are over 18, but that token can be used anywhere. They don't get to say what websites can look at it, because...how would they.

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stvltvs 6 hours ago | parent [-]

The concern isn't that an authoritarian government locks you out of some age-restricted sites, it's that it locks you out of them all.

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afdbcreid 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The government can just arrest you and lock you out of all sites. It's not like they cannot do it today.

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pibaker 41 minutes ago | parent [-]

You can disable Internet access for millions instantly. You can't arrest millions.

	▲	gambiting 35 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Again, this can be done already? Look at any authoritarian country killing internet access the moment anything happens.

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gambiting 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Well, sure. But that doesn't answer my original question - which 3rd party provider do you trust more with your own data more than the government[which in most cases already has this data]

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stvltvs 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Data ownership is just one area of concern. Controlling our access to the internet is another.

If age verification was an open standard, we could hope for competition so that we could jump ship from a bad actor. If one blocks our access, we would have alternatives. In theory.

Not so with a centralized government-mandated service.

	▲	K0nserv 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Who is in charge of certifying implementers? What happens when I provide an implementation and don't verify anything at all?