If a law like this exists, who should run the age verification?
On one hand, something dealing with your personal information should be handled by the government. The government issues IDs and already has your personal information, so it makes sense that they should be the one to confirm your ID for the purpose of these laws. A well-funded government ID verification system wouldn’t let profits get in the way of doing the job properly. It wouldn’t even have to share your personal information with the websites. They could just ask the government “oracle” if you’re over 16, and the oracle could respond yes/no.
On the other hand, governments are notorious for being decades behind the times when it comes to IT stuff. A government job is often seen as a dead-end job, and the people working there don’t feel engaged or motivated. Also, a government like the MAGA government is definitely going to use it to track every site someone visits. Sure, they could buy the data from that sketchy third-party company, but if they are the service that decides which websites someone is allowed to see, they would definitely abuse that power.
Unfortunately, the third option of “trust companies to police themselves” is just as shitty as the other two.
The “human bouncer at the door, checking IDs” is a good model in meat space. As a human, you know she’s not going to remember the personal details of anyone she checked for more than 10 seconds, so you’re comfortable sharing info with her that could be used to “dox” you. She’s a stand-alone checker and won’t share what she saw, learned or decided with anyone else. The only thing she’s deciding is if you get to enter this one venue at this current time. Also, there’s a lot of basic human judgment there. Someone with grey hair and wrinkles isn’t going to be asked to show ID. And, if a 5-year old kid tries to get in, not only will the bouncer not allow them in, they’ll try to find that kid’s parents.
The problem is, I don’t think it’s possible to come up with an equivalent of the “human bouncer” online. So, we need to think about the problem differently.
If a law like this exists, who should run the age verification?
On one hand, something dealing with your personal information should be handled by the government. The government issues IDs and already has your personal information, so it makes sense that they should be the one to confirm your ID for the purpose of these laws. A well-funded government ID verification system wouldn’t let profits get in the way of doing the job properly. It wouldn’t even have to share your personal information with the websites. They could just ask the government “oracle” if you’re over 16, and the oracle could respond yes/no.
On the other hand, governments are notorious for being decades behind the times when it comes to IT stuff. A government job is often seen as a dead-end job, and the people working there don’t feel engaged or motivated. Also, a government like the MAGA government is definitely going to use it to track every site someone visits. Sure, they could buy the data from that sketchy third-party company, but if they are the service that decides which websites someone is allowed to see, they would definitely abuse that power.
Unfortunately, the third option of “trust companies to police themselves” is just as shitty as the other two.
The “human bouncer at the door, checking IDs” is a good model in meat space. As a human, you know she’s not going to remember the personal details of anyone she checked for more than 10 seconds, so you’re comfortable sharing info with her that could be used to “dox” you. She’s a stand-alone checker and won’t share what she saw, learned or decided with anyone else. The only thing she’s deciding is if you get to enter this one venue at this current time. Also, there’s a lot of basic human judgment there. Someone with grey hair and wrinkles isn’t going to be asked to show ID. And, if a 5-year old kid tries to get in, not only will the bouncer not allow them in, they’ll try to find that kid’s parents.
The problem is, I don’t think it’s possible to come up with an equivalent of the “human bouncer” online. So, we need to think about the problem differently.