The UK's new act blocks access to adult content without identification. Turns out, you only need a copy of Death Stranding and a phone to get around it.
  • AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    294·
    1 day ago

    The first thing I thought when I heard about this facial recognition to verify age was now easy would be to trick the system with a game with photo mode. And for what I just read, it’s really that easy.

    The fun thing is that, since they claim to not save the pictures, they can’t prove that you verified with a videogame… Unless they retire the claim, admit that they save the pictures and get in huge trouble with the data privacy laws.

    Sigh… all this trouble to make an age verification system when the state could simply issue digital certs including simply your adult status (meaning you are not underage) that could be used in every website and that would not leak any personal data. And it would really work, as the authority issuing the cert is the state (which already knows your age) it could be automatically trusted on the internet and would keep your data safe.

    • mobotsar@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      24·
      1 day ago

      A state-issued cert used pervasively across all interactions on the internet and uniquely tied to a particular individual?

      Some exec at Google just creamed his pants.

      • Decq@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        1 day ago

        Could make it so it’s possible to create an unique certificate for each site, though most people probably wouldn’t bother

      • AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        41·
        1 day ago

        A state-issued cert used pervasively across all interactions on the internet and uniquely tied to a particular individual?

        If the cert only includes a single data, whioh is if the user is or not underage, without any identification other than that, i’m not sure what can you do with it. No name, no data of any kind… just a true/false statement indicating if the user (without a name or any other identification) has reached the legal age.

        • mobotsar@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          10·
          1 day ago

          If the cert is not unique to a person, it’s not a viable way of verifying age. Anyone could use one issued to anyone else, and the whole thing is DOA.

          So then we have to assume it is uniquely tied to a person. Then, it can be used by the verification service to track a person, building a profile of what websites they visit and when, even what they do there, depending on how the age verification is set up.

          Advertisers don’t really care about your name, just about your profile so they can target you with ads, so it gives them everything they want.

          • greyfox@lemmy.worldEnglish
            11·
            22 hours ago

            Presumably the cert would be a smart card (similar to credit card chips) protected with a pin. And they can use revocation lists to remove cards that are reported stolen.

            There would have to be a serial number at the least but that would change every time your card expired, and the government would certainly know who is issued what serial.

            Another downside is users would need smart card or NFS readers to use them. Smart cards have been around for digital identification for decades now, it’s really surprising that more government haven’t pushed their use. From a user perspective though it would be pretty quick that every online service would start requiring them and any online anonymity would erode pretty quickly.

  • TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    12·
    1 day ago

    But it introduces barriers. It’s much more of a faff to do this than just use your own face, and they’ll probably remove the feature now people have made it public and force you to upload an identity document.

    This is all terrible for privacy, and for the decentralised nature of the internet. For years it’s been being chipped away at, but now entire parts of the internet are going to be locked behind a few age verification services, and entirely inaccessible for under 18s or privacy conscious people. This is really bad for information freedom.

    • The Bard in Green@lemmy.starlightkel.xyzEnglish
      3·
      9 hours ago

      What we’re seeing in US states with these kinds of stupid laws, is massive increases in traffic to porn sites based overseas that have no obligation to follow the age verification law, and the state has no mechanism to compel them to do so. So all they’re doing is hurting American companies AND increasing the probability that residents of their state (including teens) will visit sketchy ass sites with sketchy ass content, sketchy ass viruses and the ability to chat with sketchy ass creepballs.

      We’ve also seen massive increases in VPN and Tor usage, as well as a massive increase in searches for information about VPN technology. I actually consider that a huge positive. Knock yourselves out Republicans.

      Of course, these laws aren’t about effectively accomplishing anything other than virtue signaling to Christofacists. At least in the US. IDK what’s going on in the UK.

  • Lazycog@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    11·
    1 day ago

    This is hilarious. There are quite a few games with ability to alter facial expressions with good enough graphics and I suspect they’d work as well!