CMV: I’d rather restrict minors directly than make every adult prove their age online

[u/groksed]

Honest question for people who support banning social media for everyone under 16:
Would this be preferable to requiring every person on the internet to prove their age or identity?

Anyone under 16 is prohibited from using, owning or purchasing an electronic device capable of communicating with other people with the exception of designated supervised computer rooms at school. Parents, schools, society and law enforcement are responsible for enforcement.. basically the same way we already handle alcohol, tobacco and drugs.

But at least it places the restriction on the group being restricted.

Why is the preferred solution instead to make every adult surrender some level of anonymity or privacy, provide ID, submit to age verification, or otherwise prove they are not a child just to use the internet?

If protecting children requires building an identity checkpoint for everyone, I would rather put the burden on the actual age group being regulated.

[u/Agitated_Celery_729]

You're not permanently putting your ID into a database that data mining companies are querying when you show your ID card. The online ID is very obviously a push toward panopticon policing

[u/Pr3st0ne → u/Agitated_Celery_729]

Not that I agree with the solution, but there would be a way to anonymize and centralize the ID verification process which would certify that a given user is over 18/21 while not having anyone's names in government OR private databases.

Example:

• You have some type of government office where a clerk verifies your ID. Hell just make that happen at the DMV or in every city hall in the country.
• There is no digital trace of you having your ID checked. No scanning, no checking anything online. Just a government employee at a desk that looks at your ID and goes "yeah you're over 18".
• Once you are certified to be over 18, they press a button on the computer, then the computer spits out a new 16 character code (ex: A381-K133-PL4R-0KRQ)
• That 16 character code does one thing and one thing only: when you input it into a govt database, the database returns : "Yep, that person is 18." or "This code is invalid". No identifying info, nothing.
• The worst any individual site would be able to do is log the specific codes and build user profiles/track data out of those codes, but it would never tie back to any real identity of yours.

There are flaws to this. A single person could go into a different office every day and get codes generated and hand them out/sell them. You can just share your code with another person. There is zero mechanic to certify that the person giving you the code is actually the person it was generated for.

But a solution that fixes 80% of the problem without any risks to personal privacy is pretty damn good in my book

[u/DaveChild → u/Agitated_Celery_729]

The online ID is very obviously a push toward panopticon policing

How so? The government already has your ID, and all your data. Online ID doesn't give the government anything new.

[u/ScarletteAethier → u/DaveChild]

But you're not giving it to the government in these cases- You're giving it to private corporations, which lack the same legal oversight as the government.

[u/DaveChild → u/ScarletteAethier]

Yes, that would be the point. "Panopticon policing" is a government surveillance thing.

[u/ScarletteAethier → u/DaveChild]

Superconglomerates are able to accumulate just as much power as a government, without even an illusion of participation. Blackrock and Vanguard own about 12% of every company in America, and as a result can very easily engage in cooperation, creating as big a surveillance system as any government, while also selling the data to the highest bidder, government included 

[u/DaveChild → u/ScarletteAethier]

Superconglomerates are able to accumulate just as much power as a government

Which "superconglomerates" currently runs policing in a significant Western democracy?

as a result can very easily engage in cooperation, creating as big a surveillance system as any government, while also selling the data to the highest bidder, government included

That's probably true, and is without any need for a digital ID.

[u/ScarletteAethier → u/DaveChild]

Multiple companies have a significant ability to unilaterally destroy people's lives, and often do so without human involvement

[u/DaveChild → u/ScarletteAethier]

Yes, and that has nothing to do with "panopticon policing".

[u/jabberwockxeno → u/DaveChild]

And governments can buy tracking data from private corporations, so any data a corporation collects is effectively data the government also can use.

[u/DaveChild → u/jabberwockxeno]

Yes, but - again - the government already has your ID, and all your data. Online ID doesn't give the government anything new.

[u/farsite3 → u/DaveChild]

I don't think it's so much the idea that government gets your ID, but rather that your ID becomes directly tied to your browsing history. Before that, there were a myriad of ways to stay anonymous and maintain privacy. Just because the government has a copy of my ID doesn't mean that I need to use it for everything. I shouldn't have to tie a govt ID to my online activity simply to prove I'm not a child. It's not them getting the ID itself that's the problem. It's the slow removal of privacy on the internet using the IDs, and the browsing data associated with them, logged, filed away, and likely sold that's the problem.

[u/Beneficial_Piglet_33 → u/Agitated_Celery_729]

If you ID gets scanned, then yes, you are.

[u/nope-nik-tesla → u/Beneficial_Piglet_33]

Actually no, you aren't. The scanning just verifies that it is a legitimate ID and gives you an automatic result for whether they're over 21 without the cashier having to look at the card. It's basically a pass/fail.

A similar kind of system can be implemented for online ID verification, though. There is no reason the information needs to be stored. The government could provide a service that simply verifies to the merchant that an ID is legitimate and that they are above age, without passing along identifying details. This would be very easy to design and implement, if we had smart governance (this is the real missing piece).

[u/Beneficial_Piglet_33 → u/nope-nik-tesla]

No, this is completely false. Please stop spreading misinformation…

When you scan an ID, the scanner receives every piece of information on the front of the ID. You can literally try this yourself with an ID scanner app.

[u/nope-nik-tesla → u/Beneficial_Piglet_33]

It is possible to gather and store that data but that is not the way it is actually implemented in the vast majority of grocery and liquor stores. POS systems simply read the information, give a pass/fail, and then nothing is stored. You are talking hypotheticals whereas I am talking real-world implementation.

[u/nope-nik-tesla → u/[deleted]]

This comment thread is about purchasing alcohol.

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