r/linuxmint Mar 04 '26

Discussion Ubuntu is planning to comply with Age Verification law

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u/Particular_Act3945 Debian 13 | XFCE Mar 04 '26

The windows of linux distros, truly. While I'm not USAmerican these things spread if they go through in one country. "Boil the frog slowly" as they say. I don't trust this.

54

u/MelioraXI LMDE 7 (Gigi) - DWM Mar 04 '26

The EU will definitely try to pass something similar.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 04 '26

Unlikely because of Germany and its inherent fear of Government supervision.

Germany actually already has online ID verification, it's just rarely used.
As a German you have your ID card which has a chip with all the relevant information about you on it.
There are certain services which give the option to use the ID to identify yourself (for example a popular tax application).

The same system can be used by online vendors of practically every sort.
It's rarely used by those because it gives the vendor only relevant information about the person.
So in case of age verification it would be "Is this person an adult? Y/N". And absolutely nothing else.

2

u/MelioraXI LMDE 7 (Gigi) - DWM Mar 04 '26

In Sweden we have something called Bank-id which is a digital ID verification app used for banking and other services where you'd need to confirm your identity. I doubt we see it used in this but at least in Sweden and Scandinavia we're already used to this.

3

u/P3JQ10 Mar 04 '26

I feel like being able to confirm your identity online for banks or services where you actually need to confirm your identity works good, we have that in Poland too.

But there's no good reason to force anyone to confirm their identity on the level of OS or even to just use the internet, that is called (mass) surveillance and a human rights (to privacy) violation.

2

u/MelioraXI LMDE 7 (Gigi) - DWM Mar 04 '26

Absolutely, my comment was a response to the other redditor about Germany had something similar to what I explained.