Age Verification - Of children?

[paulca]

So this all took a sinister twist in the last few weeks.

I seen a report that Roblox was now asking for age verification face scans to access "Social and chat features" on their platform.  The Roblox platform is a wide age range audience.

I asked my own daughter about this (aged and she said, "Yes it asked  to take my photo, but it didn't work.", when I asked, "It didn't let you into the chat?", she said, "No, but I could carry on playing."

So, she just completed an age verification check with a biometric face scan without my consent.  In the UK this is 100% illegal.  Yet the government themselves want to push even harder on this now and add age vertification for VPN access or just ban certain categories or "use cases" for VPNs.

I got an email from XBox saying that they too will be asking for face scan age verification checks for social access on Minecraft. 

Not enough people are talking about the "other side of the coin".  Adults proving they are adults is one thing, but the "obvious" fact is, they are going to be asking children to submit to these checks too... and a lot of them just will.

First it's training them that this kind of invasive ID check is "normal" and teaching them to comply.  Secondly, you are not allowed to collect data from children in the UK without parental consent.  Third, If they use age verification to "separate" out the social features, to have two groups, one of children and one of adults... they have created something even worse.  A community of "guaranteed and verified as children".  So when predators "gain access" ....

It started with "Pron" and "Think of the children".  Now it's actually attacking the children and making things far less safe.  It's spreading to social media, soon YouTube.  YOU MUST OBEY AND COMPLY!

[SiliconWizard]

Yes.

[coppercone2]

yeah their gonna keep your ID data safe like this guy 

https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/11/doj-says-trenchant-boss-sold-exploits-to-russian-broker-capable-of-accessing-millions-of-computers-and-devices/

that corporate privacy policy they have is such a reassurance, when this happens at a top defense contractor lol

im sure discord or whatever service will do better

what actually keeps kids safe and out of trouble : parents that work a normal work week and bring home enough to prevent ridiculous time sinks from occurring. if its some irresponsible absent parent with no money, their kids won't turn out better with a draconian government. p.s. let the kids hang out in the mall instead of charging them with loitering to force them online

Just an observation... the punks (bad kids) that I have seen grow up in like restricted environments (i.e. very strict countries) are like worse, it like militarizes their negative traits and they are better at subterfuge and are generally meaner, they want the same thing as everyone but had to work harder and learn to take more risk then others to get it, making them tougher to deal with and a bigger problem because the capabilities are increased. Kind of like prison hardening  And they get so used to it that those behaviors can be done with little stress or consideration

Like you ever notice that some total "mfers" happen to come from catholic school with a belt dad? Now they want the government to make catholic school for everyone. I feel double unsafe

[stj]

it's all BS to pressure and prepare people for "mandatory" digital ID.

i put that in quotes because whenever i hear it the only thing that goes through my mind is "mandatory executions"
TREASON is still a crime - not a sport, politicians dont seem to understand that!

[paulca]

Pitch fork mode is burbling, that has upsides and downsides.

[Agent24]

A lot of parties have fingers in this pie.

Some do genuinely want to protect kids, but understand nothing about technology and don't understand why this idea is actually terrible, and won't protect kids anyway.

The rest all have their own interests at stake, and none of them are altruistic. Corporations, governments, Epstein-associated creeps, etc. Nothing good will come of it.

The time to stand up and oppose this shit is now. By any means necessary.

[paulca]

The aim point is simple.  Data quality.  We lower it.

EDIT:
So we see the tip of the iceberg of "data breaches", for everyone that makes the BBC there are probably 100 a day that don't make it there.  For everyone of those there are probably 100 that do not get reported at all and for every one of them another 100 where victim is completely unaware.

All of these are presented in the context of "breach" meaning "data egress" out of secure storage or to a  3rd party.  Aka.  "Disclosure".

What nobody seems to be talking about is how hackers and intruders can silently change data and leave no trace.

Why does nobody consider that the same mal-actors can also "write".

What if "doxing" mutates into "erasure" instead?  Do something to annoy a group and they get a hacker to delete you from the digital ID databases.  Suddenly you don't exist and have no linkage to your own property, identity or money.  (paranoid fantasy maybe a movie?)

[Agent24]

What if "doxing" mutates into "erasure" instead?  Do something to annoy a group and they get a hacker to delete you from the digital ID databases.  Suddenly you don't exist and have no linkage to your own property, identity or money.  (paranoid fantasy maybe a movie?)

"The Net" with Sandra Bullock springs to mind, but there's plenty more with a similar premise.

[langwadt]

It started with "Pron" and "Think of the children".  Now it's actually attacking the children and making things far less safe.  It's spreading to social media, soon YouTube.  YOU MUST OBEY AND COMPLY!

Nah, google and meta probably wrote the legislation so they can comply with little issue but every wannabe competitor will be buried in red tape and fines

[Nusa]

And all the kid needs is a photo of mom or dad (or anyone old enough, even ai images) to show to the camera to bypass this method of verification.

[stj]

And all the kid needs is a photo of mom or dad (or anyone old enough, even ai images) to show to the camera to bypass this method of verification.

until they start cross-checking them against existing images.
remember, they already have pictures from - among other places:
bus passes
passports
driving licenses
arrest records
social media scrapes
SCHOOL PHOTO'S / I.D.'s !!

all it takes is a datacenter with enough processing to require a small nuclear reactor - oh wait.....
 

[MrMobodies]

until they start cross-checking them against existing images.
remember, they already have pictures from - among other places:
bus passes
passports
driving licenses
arrest records
social media scrapes
SCHOOL PHOTO'S / I.D.'s !!

Joke: For the first time MyLife.com could be useful to provide alternate ID's for that if it is still there.

[peter-h]

This is how some take the easy way out
https://help.vimeo.com/hc/en-us/articles/30298226209169-Changes-to-Vimeo-com-in-the-EU-and-UK

One problem is that many parents secretly regard this as a good thing, because they would like to get their kids off social media but would face a revolution if they tried.

There are ways to prevent using a static image. One online bank I signed up with ages ago used a system where you film your face (with a phone; no PC option) and say some text which comes up.

[stj]

because live camera feeds can be trusted 

[artag]

There are ways to prevent using a static image. One online bank I signed up with ages ago used a system where you film your face (with a phone; no PC option) and say some text which comes up.

Yes, I've encountered some that ask for facial movement such opening mouth or turning side to side.
That sounds well within the capabilities of image-generating AI.

[stj]

that youtube i just posted is 6 years old btw, and runs on an average smartphone.
think of how much better it could be now!

you can probably "skin" yourself with faces of known people!

[paulca]

They even now want to talk about "Smart Vapes" which are finger print activated and must be "Age verified" on a smart phone to use.

[stj]

so we went from free lithium batteries in the street,
to free lithium chargers in the street,
and maybe soon - free bluetooth interfaces?

we need to get rid of these treasonous clowns fast!
luckilly i dont think they will be around much longer because of some of the stupid stuff they are doing - like the new vape tax that also applies to refills!
thats gonna create so much anger when your average vape goes from £7 to £10-12 in a single day!

[paulca]

The ingredients in vapes are unregulated food products.  Vegetable glyerin, propylene glycol.  Food flavourings.

The only one they "could" regulate is the nicotine supply chain, but even there I think there are legitimate other uses for nicotine in the normal supply chain.  It's still the weakest link though.

[stj]

they will be targetting comercial blends, not a tiny few people making "homebrew"
you can only do just so many fills before the wick burns inside the heater usually anyway.

[langwadt]

that youtube i just posted is 6 years old btw, and runs on an average smartphone.
think of how much better it could be now!

you can probably "skin" yourself with faces of known people!

I read somewhere that some kids used a video game character, or even more funny, painted on a mustache