Inaccuracy of age verification does cause its own problems, but I don’t think it is an issue we should focus attention on. This is easily rebutted by the pro age verification camp asserting “accuracy will improve.” Criticism of (in)accuracy is not a winning argument. Same for facial recognition technology.
Instead, I believe we should focus on the personal/cultural/social/political harms of age verification technology on the assumption it works perfectly (100% accurate and foolproof) but still causes more problems than it solves.
Further, I believe we should also consider these arguments with the possibility that “privacy-preserving” technologies (zero-knowledge proofs for instance) that never sends identity documents, face scans or other sensitive data may be adopted. There is an emerging “privacy technology” industry that is attempting to build “privacy-preserving” technologies. In that light, we should consider these “privacy-preserving” solutions may still leak information about people’s identities and activities (due to theoretical technological limitations, poor implementation or mis-assumption that age verification operators can be trusted), and adoption of these “privacy-preserving” solutions will be neither immediate nor universal and may remain niche.
Personally I believe websites/operators confirming adulthood by asking “Are you over 18? Yes / No” and by blurring NSFW content are sensible/proportionate measures that websites/services can adopt if they have not yet. While without doubt “privacy-preserving” solutions are better than having people upload IDs, I think age verification mandates that go beyond should not exist at all.
I think these points below could be considered, even if they cannot be pitched as winning arguments, and I’m sure others can think of more.
- Human rights and civil liberties introduced by any form of age verification, particularly loss of privacy/anonymity and its consequences
- Security risks of “non-privacy-preserving” age verification methods, particularly leakage of people’s IDs
- “Protect the children” merely a pretext for more government power and control, particularly censorship
- Risks of scope creep and abuse of age verification mandates
- Flaws of the law/safety “both online and offline” argument, for instance flaws of the “it’s like showing ID at the liquor shop” analogy
- Splintering of the global internet into jurisdictional boundaries, and complex cross-jurisdictional legal requirements/processes that websites/services must navigate
- Exclusion of small website/service operators who cannot comply with age verification mandates, for instance servers of federated services like Mastodon and Peertube
- Techno-solutionism: framing of age verification as the only viable solution
- Framing and dis-empowerment of children, parents, schools and other guardians as irresponsible and incapable of taking care of themselves or their own children, instead of empowering them to do what they are supposed to do
- Psychological/cultural normalization of permission culture, intrusive data collection and mass surveillance: routinely having your own face scanned or ID uploaded, requiring permission every time you visit websites, fearing every online interaction is logged/analyzed/aggregated/evaluated, etc.
The above is just my opinion though. I’m curious to hear what others think.
Other recent threads that discuss age verification.