NEW: Analysis finds UK's age verification rollout is producing exactly the opposite of the desired effect: Driving traffic non-compliant adult sites. Which punishes compliant ones. Entirely predictable. That's not the worst part 1/ By @drewharwell.com www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...
2/ The UK's age verification law forces law-abiding citizens to hand over personal data / scan their faces as they browse. Compelling folks to participate a massive clandestine census of browsing activity. As these troves of data grow, they expose everyone to the risk of new breaches. And worse.
phishers will love a.v. so very very much
3/ Age verification laws double as a low-cost surveillance mandate. And they are coming to a jurisdiction near you. Support your local civil liberties organizations. www.eff.org/deeplinks/20...
cc @enbrown.bsky.social
We all know there are age verification methods that don't require data retention.
I really enjoyed the story of kids using the faces of video game characters to gain entry.
Apparently you can put metadata on websites too to label them as unsuitable for kids. This would work much much better if made obligatory. Parents can easily verify their children's ages to the exact year, but have little idea whether those kids are accessing age-appropriate content.