Privacy is very important to me. And having to verify your age/identity in anyway online seems very risky, open to abuse, blackmail etc. The privacy conscious can work-around the verification or decide not to access restricted websites anymore.
It's hard to deny the negative impact that unfettered access to inappropriate material has had on the younger generations. Some sort of verification seems like a net-positive for society.
The problem is that bypassing it whether via VPN's or accessing sites that don't comply will be so easy that the whole thing will be ineffective to a large degree. But maybe a little effectiveness is enough. If it helps prevent very young kids from accidentally stumbling upon inappropriate content maybe that will have a meaningful impact.
I also strongly value privacy and honestly this kind of scheme always rubs me wrong. In the physical world, we have IDs, provided by the government, a business is only required to do a brief check and often does not have to retain information. This means that you can retain a fair bit of privacy for the individual, and the burden on the business is fairly low. And yet, for some reason, online we get the worst of both worlds: businesses have to figure out how implement cumbersome verification measures (which means small businesses/ hobbyists will struggle to comply) AND there is basically no privacy. How did we get there?
Yeah this particular system doesn't sound great. It seems like Epic are storing the fact you're verified and your email. I've definitely seen systems where they verify you and immediately delete the data.
Makes me wonder: why do we not have a government provided service? IDing people has, traditionally been a responsibility of the government. Even the private verification services ultimately rely on you showing your government issued ID at some point. If the governments want online verification, they should provide the tools and make sure they are accessible to all.
> Makes me wonder: why do we not have a government provided service?
Because every UKGOV since about 1980 has had an obsession with small government and farming out as much as they can to private contractors[0] regardless of consequences.
[0] Until those contractors fail to perform / go bust at which point the government steps in, things get better (shockingly) for a while, and then the government farms it out to another bunch of idiots who have ~bribed~ lobbied hard and the cycle repeats.
It sounds like a good idea to me and given the quality of some of the government tech services now in the UK I'm sure they could do a good job of it. But people are still against ID cards. Telling the government directly that you're viewing content on specific sites seems like something that would never be accepted.
We got here because adults cannot stop using the internet to victimize children. Education failed. Enforcement has largely failed. A loss of privacy is the next logical step until adults stop victimizing children. I use my nine year olds accounts fairly regularly and I’ve gotta tell ya mate, the number of dudes I meet who are pretending to be 9 and 10 year olds girls is pretty shocking. A loss of privacy stinks but at some point, society as a whole pays for the actions of very few. It’s the dark side of laws - they restrict freedom for everyone because a select few cannot be trusted with the tools we have at our disposal.
My thought on this is that parents shouldn't be giving 9 year olds accounts on any online service. But that doesn't seem to be something that is manageable for parents (no judgement). Would it make more sense for the government to completely ban children under x years from using phones/tablets? The internet? It sounds ridiculous but if an adult provided a child with alcohol or tobacco they would face consequences and therefore those things are controlled to a large extent. Could we do something similar in the digital world? Banning it at the website level is futile so maybe taking a step back to the devices themselves is the solution.
It's hard to deny the negative impact that unfettered access to inappropriate material has had on the younger generations. Some sort of verification seems like a net-positive for society.
The problem is that bypassing it whether via VPN's or accessing sites that don't comply will be so easy that the whole thing will be ineffective to a large degree. But maybe a little effectiveness is enough. If it helps prevent very young kids from accidentally stumbling upon inappropriate content maybe that will have a meaningful impact.