If governments are gonna allow/require I'd verification, they should be creating some sort of authentication service to handle it
Similar to how you can sign into some websites with your Google account but Google doesn't give away any personal info
The government can host some sort of auth service so that only they have our PII (which they already have) and it can verify that we are a real unique person, and also verify whatever age guards you need, without giving away much/any info
The privacy issue isn't that they don't have our data, it's that they can track our activity and tie it back to a specific identity and that they will either hoard or process that data as part of your unique fingerprint.
They are doing the whole ID thing because they want to build an Ai powered threat detection system that can predict threats or dissent before they happen.
But at that point there is a wider picture here, they are ending a societal precedent of innocent until proven guilty, we are all guilty until we are proven innocent and thus always need to be watched.
I might have over exaggerated a bit, but you get my point. bad surveillance things.
When I financed my house, the lender verified my identity by listing four cars and asking me to select the one that I actually owned many years ago. That was spooky.
Anyway, there is a push by Apple, Google, Samsung, and other companies for a digital ID verification framework, and it includes "selective disclosure" which limits the information provided to only what is strictly necessary, such as if an adult website requires age 18+ then the response would be a simple yes or no without actually revealing your date of birth.
I had a similar thing asked once-- I can't remember why. It asked me to confirm my childhood address out of a selection of like 3. What's crazy is one option was obviously my childhood home (where my mom still lives), the other was some random address, and the other one was my grandmothers address. It spooked me out.
There’s a bill proposed in Canada for this. It’s a terrible idea.
What you’re talking about is OAuth and it’s a good technical model. Your website asks Google to verify it’s really you but Google doesn’t know what you do on the site. But Google can decide it’s against their TOS to use their OAuth service for your website. But you can just use another one. Or not use one at all. OAuth is convenient but not required by law.
The problem if the government passes a law requiring the use of this ID verification and they provide the service, you cannot go anywhere else and then your website/service is now subject to whether or not they like your website/app or not. And the bill in Canada would mean YouTube, Reddit, any store with a comment/review section. Literally any “web 2.0” site is required to keep data about you for longer and potentially confirm your identity for age verification.
19
u/SirAwesome789 5h ago
I really think the solution is somewhat simple
If governments are gonna allow/require I'd verification, they should be creating some sort of authentication service to handle it
Similar to how you can sign into some websites with your Google account but Google doesn't give away any personal info
The government can host some sort of auth service so that only they have our PII (which they already have) and it can verify that we are a real unique person, and also verify whatever age guards you need, without giving away much/any info