Disclaimer: I’m not from US, I know little about US laws and how this age verification will look.

So if anyone needs from me the verification that I am who I am in my day-to-day life (in a bank, at bureau, …) it’s usually handled via the Notary office. It might sound old school but it’s really great actually - do you have a printed document and you need a proof that you actually signed it? Notary. Do you need a copy and you need a proof that it’s actually 1-to-1 copy of the original? Notary. etc. And it costs like 2-5 € where I live.

So if someone would ask me to prove that I’m older than 18 years old and I’d like to keep my anonymity in the process … notary. I’d of course not send my ID to any corporation, I’d go to notary with a document: “User of platform XYZ identified by their ID 123 is more than 18 years old”. I’d just need to prove to notary that I actually am user 123 but I can do that in their office. Not to mention that we could find a way to anonymize platform completely in this process using some hash.

Is this possible for these age verification laws? Or is there some flaw in my thinking?

  • a4ng3l@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    2 days ago

    I’m not advocating blind trust. Nor being too trusty. The specific point here is service access with need of proof of age.

    The threat I was addressing in this instance is the service provider not the trust provider.

    Other patterns apply for scenarios in which government is a threat a well.

    Let’s not let perfect be the enemy of good enough.

    • theneverfox@pawb.socialEnglish
      2·
      2 days ago

      The government is the primary untrusted party in the places where this is being implemented unfortunately… It’s not a bad system you’re suggesting, but it doesn’t address the problem either

      • a4ng3l@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        2 days ago

        There’s nothing of the sort in OP’s post. Maybe you have such a use-case?

        Also it’s literally implemented where I am from and the government isn’t the worse party yet for us.

        • theneverfox@pawb.socialEnglish
          1·
          2 days ago

          Not the government provided identity verification service…I can see the use case for that , even if the government is an untrusted party

          I mean the age gating laws going around. They’re suddenly popping up all at once because there’s a not so secret cabal of surveillance state freaks trying to make 1984 happen

          And I do mean freaks. They’re death cultists trying to bring about the end of the world either because they think they’ll stand even higher on top of the rubble for some reason or from quasi religious psychosis. Look up Peter Tiel and palantir if you want to learn more, it’s pretty disturbing stuff when you realize how many governments are buying into it

          But these laws are being pushed so private companies can collect data on the population and sell monitoring back to the government. If the government is part of the demasking process, they’ll get everything they want neatly packaged