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United States law that would require all operating systems to implement mandatory age verification is now available to read.
The bill is ironically titled the Parents Decide Act rather than the Government Decides Act. It applies to all operating systems; Windows, Linux, embedded systems, even smart refrigerators. Developers will have full access to all relevant personal data.
The bill doesn't even specify how age verification will work and instead delegates this task to the FTC, which will also specify data storage/protection requirements. The law wiould be considered in effect one year from date it is enacted and violations will be handled under the Federal Trade Commission Act.
„Child protection“ laws like this have no good justification and simply amount to destroying anonymity on the internet. What benefit does anybody get from such a law anyway? I can't see any. If operating systems are so bad for 17 year olds, why don't parents just take their kids' phones away? How does 17 year olds using operating systems create negative externalities for other people? I'm not seeing what I'm supposed to be gaining from these laws. It seems like lazy parents have teamed up with law enforcement who hate anonymous internet usage to demand that governments destroy internet privacy under the thin veneer of protecting teenagers from nothing.
Most age verification policies continually fail to answer some pretty basic questions.
How do you verify age without invading privacy? There's plenty of neat "tricks" to try to get around it but ultimately there has to be some thread between you and your activities online. Whether it be giving your ID to websites directly or giving your ID to a third party who tells the websites you're of age.
Why would parents who are fine with buying their child a computer/smart phone/etc device and are fine with them using it unmonitored willy nilly not be willing to just use their ID for a kid? What kind of parent gets their child a computer but then says "nvm" at an OS level age verification? How many parents out there are fine with their kids watching YouTube all day unmonitored who won't just do a facial scan for the kid as well?
How do you stop kids from just using other identities anyway? Just go grab an ID online or get it from your parents wallet or whatever. People are literally scanning video game characters even to get past the age restrictions. The more restrictive you get on this, the more you amplify the first problem of linking identity to internet usage.
China a country with far more restrictive policies still largely failed to manage curbing children's gaming, and they don't even have to concern themselves as much with the first problem. As I've said before, that means we have to be super China in order to keep most children off the internet. Maybe you think that is worth it, but I don't want to be super China.
You cannot be super China either. Your state simply does not wield enough power to be super China, and your bureaucracy would not have the competence to pull it off. It's funny that people always say "I don't want to become China" as if that were an option they're deliberately turning down. You don't really have that option.
We can always do a shitty half-assed version with most of the downsides and no upside.
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