To be clear, I’m not advocating for online age verification. I’m very much against it in any form. I’m just curious from a technical standpoint if it’s possible somehow to construct an accurate age verification system that doesn’t compromise a user’s privacy? i.e., it doesn’t expose the person’s identity to anyone nor leaves behind a paper trail that can be traced to that person?

  • UsedCumSock@sh.itjust.works
    41·
    19 hours ago
    1. Sign up for age verification platform and upload your government ID on the platform (let’s call this platform Age Verifier).
    2. Age Verifier confirms you’re an adult, and lists you as an adult in their system.
    3. Age Verifier purges your government ID and any PII on you. The only thing they keep is your basic account details and the fact that they’ve confirmed you’re an adult.
    4. The next time you login to an adult site, you verify yourself by logging into Age Verifier’s platform. The adult site confirms with Age Verifier that you’re an adult, and you’re good to go.

    This system probably works, but it’s not without its downsides. We’ll need a way to confirm that your government ID and PII is actually deleted on Age Verifier’s platform. A way to deal with this might be to make sure Age Verifier is never driven by profit so they’ll never need to look into selling people’s data. Maybe it could be ran by a non-profit? Or perhaps it can be ran by the government? But if you don’t trust the government, that could be an issue.

    And I can also see an issue where one guy who keeps creating different Age Verifier accounts, verifying that the account is an adult, and then selling that account to people.

    • xavier666@lemmy.umucat.dayEnglish
      2·
      9 hours ago

      We’ll need a way to confirm that your government ID and PII is actually deleted on Age Verifier’s platform.

      IMO this is the hardest part to ensure in a transparent manner.

      And I can also see an issue where one guy who keeps creating different Age Verifier accounts, verifying that the account is an adult, and then selling that account to people.

      The token needs to be time and device sensitive. Should be possible via a hash