What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Framing: Age Verification vs. Mass Surveillance

  • Many argue “protecting kids” is a pretext; the real aim is universal identity-linked tracking and censorship.
  • Concern that once an ID layer exists, it will be expanded and repurposed (e.g., punishing dissent, enforcing broader controls).
  • Slippery-slope worry: infrastructure built “for kids” enables 1984‑style per-user internet permissioning and dynamic denial of access.

Effectiveness and Tolerating Imperfection

  • Several posters stress no law is 100% effective (compare alcohol/tobacco); a 70–90% reduction in minor access may be sufficient.
  • Others respond that partial effectiveness will be used politically to justify ever-stronger, more invasive verification.

Client‑Side / Non‑Identity Approaches

  • Strong support for shifting control to devices and parents rather than websites or governments:
    • OS‑level age flags and parental controls.
    • Sites/apps publishing content ratings or tags (porn/violence/gambling, etc.) and letting devices “fail closed” if tags are missing.
    • Whitelists or “kid mode” devices; locked-down app stores for children’s phones only.
  • Advocates say this avoids identity checks, keeps decisions with parents, and still adds friction for kids.

Cryptographic / Token-Based Schemes

  • Multiple privacy-preserving ideas are floated:
    • Government-issued age tokens or scratch cards/UUIDs sold where alcohol is sold.
    • Zero-knowledge proofs and anonymous government-signed “over 18” attributes.
    • Identity wallets, smartcards, YubiKey-like tokens, or one-time codes.
  • Critics note practical issues: token resale at scale, device-binding requiring secure enclaves, risk of tracking via public keys, and ease of collusion between governments and sites.

Open Computing, Remote Attestation, and Lockdown

  • Strong anxiety that serious age-check schemes imply:
    • No rooted/jailbroken phones, no custom browsers, and marginalization of Linux/open platforms.
    • Widespread remote attestation letting sites refuse service to non‑approved hardware/software.
  • Some say this is worse than showing an ID because it entrenches Apple/Google and kills general-purpose computing.

Child Harm, Moral Panic, and Parenting

  • One camp emphasizes documented harms: addictive feeds, grooming, self-harm communities, NCII, and bullying at scale; they see regulation as necessary.
  • Another camp views this as moral panic and argues:
    • The internet has always had risks; good parenting, autonomy-building, and device-level controls are the right tools.
    • Adults are also harmed by surveillance and manipulative algorithms; fixing those systemically is preferable to ID’ing everyone.

Politics, Power, and Trust

  • Posters note:
    • Voters genuinely want “something done,” which politicians and big firms can exploit.
    • Surveillance capitalism already tracks most users; age verification may deepen or formalize this.
    • Even technically private systems can be swapped out later; distrust that governments or large vendors will resist that temptation.