"adult content" is the boogeyman, to try to make this harder to argue against. The actual net result is shutting down a wide variety of websites and making people identify themselves (to paid identity providers conveniently provided by those who lobbied for this legislation) in order to access others, including Reddit, Discord, etc.
You should not need to identify yourself to access arbitrary websites, either to the website or to some third party.
I agree, you shouldn't need to identify yourself. Protocols like mobile drivers license (and others) allow you to do selective disclosure of properties such as "over 18", without disclosing any other personal identifiers. That seems like reasonable compromise.
Feel free to do that if you wish. Don't force it on everyone else. No "compromise" is needed here.
Would be interested to hear whether you've evaluated the regulatory capture angle here, of paid services being pushed by the same people who forced the legislation down everyone's throats.
I touched on this in another comment. We are already doing age verification today, and poorly.
> There is a lot of this going on in this thread and frankly it is quite frustrating. Texas and France are two jurisdictions I know implemented privacy laws and now porn websites are collecting PII. I know this because when I traveled to Europe, my account on an adult website (gasp, yes I admit to having one) started asking me for ID. When I tried to proceed through verification with their chosen third party the flow requested a video of my face. Yuck. When I got back the US, it was still requesting face verification. I talked to support and, basically, once I used a French SIM card it "blew a verification fuse" and the only way to get my account back was to send that video of my face. I found this unacceptable, so I abandoned my account.
> If we refuse to find a workable solution that respects privacy and is based in open standards, we are going to cede this space to private third party companies.
When we deny the government a role, we cede this territory to private companies that are accountable to no one but their shareholders. I'd rather develop ID standards that protect privacy while providing access.
> I touched on this in another comment. We are already doing age verification today, and poorly.
Yes, and we should fight that vigorously and make it stop, not make it "better".
> I talked to support and, basically, once I used a French SIM card it "blew a verification fuse" and the only way to get my account back was to send that video of my face. I found this unacceptable, so I abandoned my account.
Helpful data, thank you. Note to self: don't browse the web at all in draconian countries without a VPN, not even once.
> When we deny the government a role, we cede this territory to private companies that are accountable to no one but their shareholders. I'd rather develop ID standards that protect privacy while providing access.
So if we're going to lose, we should try to make it hurt less? That's a strategy for when one has given up on winning.
I want harm reduction and pragmatism, yes. Can you tell me that in five years these laws won't be widespread regardless of whatever technology we implement? In five years fewer countries and states will have age verification laws?
> The U.K. Online Safety Act was (avowedly, as revealed in a recent High Court case) "not primarily aimed at protecting children" but at regulating "services that have a significant influence over public discourse."
You should not need to identify yourself to access arbitrary websites, either to the website or to some third party.