My Age Verification Solution Proposal

Questions
105

Your system doesn’t have any safeguards against one key being used for thousands of device. You could imagine the shop owner unlocking devices on customer request with its key.

Also, in a unrelated comment, what do you do for people that the government dislikes or are here temporarily? I know US is still a democracy (recents even nonwithstanding) but what about in other countries? China already disables cell plans of people who are caught using suspicious apps (in Xinjiang at least , allthingssecured made a video on it). If the US goes ahead and mandate all device manufacturer to require a key to use it (and probably also bans installing third-party ROMs them), then every other country will feel OK to follow suit.

Also, do you also think PCs should be locked down this way? Do you therefore propose forcing all Linux distros to do the same or risk being banned by Secureboot? And do you also want to force PC manufacturers to not allow disabling Secureboot?

Anyway, I am not 100% against age verification, but I am 100% against it on a device level.

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106

I am tired tonight. But I will get back to you tomorrow. As, I need to think a little bit about what you commented here. Cause you pointed out some big holes that would need to be addressed. That would need to be taken carefully into consideration.

Thank you so much for the comment! Will get back to you soon. With supposed fixes that could be implemented.

In the meantime if there is anyone else here that can think of anything go right ahead!

For one fix I had:

107

Since you are against device level verification. What would you like to see implemented if you don’t mind me asking? How would you go about making a private solution with the available private solution technologies we got?

108

I will answer in detail tomorrow.

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109

I haven’t read through all the comments yet, there are a lot to go through… but I think the thing that primarily concerns me is the assumption that private citizens are inherently doing something immoral or illegal with undue cause. Just having an internet connection should not be cause for suspicion. Are we not innocent until proven guilty???

Which government gets to decide what is immoral and/or illegal and where is the crossover? Who gets to decide what content is inappropriate and at what age? The parents and the maturity of the child as a unique individual should ultimately be the deciding factor, not big brother or the government… and as we can clearly see this being played out in real time, it is questionable whether or not some government bodies are more concerned about children’s welfare or maybe they are just looking for an excuse to normalize invasive practices and data mining.

Who is to stop someone with a grudge from using their power and influence to manipulate this information to falsely accuse or punish people? I mean, kids have been figuring out how to access pornography and alcohol since before IDs were a thing, I’m sure they will figure out a way to circumvent digital IDs or age verification keys; and if a kid can figure that out, who is to stop some nefarious hacker from intercepting all of this data to be exploited and used against innocent people???

Honestly, if this was REALLY about protecting the children, then why are we not creating stiffer legislation with actual teeth to PUT PERVS BEHIND BARS? Why are we not making sure pedophiles are not back out on the streets after a couple years and a slap on the wrist??? Why are we making it so hard for victims to come forward, why are we forcing them to relive their traumas, face their abusers in court???

WHY ARE WE NOT GOING AFTER THE CRIMINALS instead of focusing on invading the privacy of the average private citizen??? When I was abused and SA’d as a child, nobody did shit to help me. And what did the cops do? Nothing. The one abuser (there were multiple) I actually had the balls to report, the cops decided he was “too old for jail”.

This is not about protecting the children. This is about unfettered access to people’s private information. This is about control and manipulation. Let’s stop pretending that we care about kids. If they did, America would not have elected a pedophile and a rapist, yet here we are.

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110

I don’t think this is a good enough reason to support age verification. I think voters need to shut this shit down and overthrow a corrupt and undemocratic authoritarian government.

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111

Your own argument is flawed, if we allow age verification in this manner by very virtue that you don’t want to fight a battle you think has already been lost, there will NO rolling back this precedent for government overreach and surveillance and control that this tipping point will set up for future exploitation. This is dangerous territory. Again, this is NOT about protecting children. How is monitoring what people are looking at online going to protect anyone when we can’t even even keep repeat offenders from harming kids when we know about their illegal activities???

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112

This is supposed to be a thing to stop children from accessing things they shouldn’t. If the government uses it for surveillance that is them using the system for treating all of us like a suspect. That is what I want to stop from happening or not have it happen in the first place.

That is why in my proposal the parents are the ones who determine what apps and sites the child gets to visit. Adults have unfeathered access. But kids have restrictions that parents can keep blacklisted or to whitelist.

The thing you wrote in your post is why they have to sometimes face their abuser in court.

Everyone is considered innocent until proven guilty. But the jury still needs to hear from the witness, victim and the accused. While there are sometimes cases that the victim doesn’t need to appear in court. Read up some law. On why the legal system is structured the way it is.

Who says they are not? It not exactly easy to catch criminals it can take months of investigative work and they also have to work on a budget they don’t have unlimited resources.

I’m truly sorry that happened to you it’s heartbreaking when the system fails us. I understand that. The system failed me too, and I get that we both have our own perspectives on what happened. That’s why I want to work toward a better solution. Everyone has their own reasons and motivations, but I believe it’s important to advocate for what you feel is right and if you are vemiantly against what I propose that’s all right.

There is reasons I keep mentioning disabled parents, and about some kids falling through the cracks. Not going to go into personal specifics. But I have my reasons why I want to improve the system with a said solution like this.

That could be the case. That is why I am trying to find common ground for a more private solution. So, that it doesn’t become the case.

Even Donald Trump is innocent until proven guilty. The man hasn’t even been convicted of anything close to that. Though maybe in the court of public opinion that is a different matter. Still doesn’t mean he couldn’t have done it. Just that he hasn’t been proven in court to have done those things.

The anchor falsely said “judges and two separate juries have found him liable for rape”.

113

You clearly haven’t read my proposed idea. At the top. I’m trying to include things to prevent the government from knowing our activity. Doesn’t mean my solution is perfect. There are many other way to do things. Like others have said in this debate more teaching, better resources etc. I just want to spark debate for more better solutions or to fix the current implementations that states have already inacted. Or if the American people decide that age verification is too stay.

For the bottom of your response. The system isn’t perfect more work needs to be done to improve the justice system. When it comes to repeat offenders.

114

If you don’t understand statistics, 80% of something can be very misleading. 80% of what? Who was being polled? How large the sample? Did everyone have equal access and opportunity to share their opinions? Was the poll available to a select part of the population? Who funded the survey? Did they have a conflict of interest, were they biased? Just saying that 80% of parents are in favour of age restriction means nothing if you don’t know how to interpret the statistic, you are just parroting how someone else has interpreted it.

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115

Exactly they support the age verification. But they don’t necessary agree with providing personal information to access said apps or website.

That is why there should be a balance privacy respecting one with a solution I provided or any other like @GorujoCY provided

Give the people what they want. A more balanced and privacy respecting one.

https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/britons-back-online-safety-acts-age-checks-are-sceptical-effectiveness-and-unwilling-share-id
This support is strong across the political spectrum, including three-quarters (75%) of 2024 Labour voters, 73% of Conservative voters, and 79% of Liberal Democrat voters. Support is lower among Reform UK voters, but a majority (56%) still support age verifications. Support is higher among women (78%) than men (60%), and higher than average among parents (77%).

When asked about specific methods:

People are most willing to use their email address (56% likely).
The public is split on using a photo or video of their face (43% likely, 37% unlikely) or photographic ID like a passport or driver’s license (40% likely, 41% unlikely).
There is strong reluctance towards using financial information, with 68% unlikely to use a credit card and 72% unlikely to use their banking information.

“Our research reveals a significant paradox in public opinion towards the Online Safety Act. While there is a clear and broad desire to protect children online, reflected in the strong support for age verification, this is matched by deep-seated scepticism about whether the Act can deliver on its promises. Data breaches and the potential for censorship are highlighted, as the public doubt these measures will be effective against tech-savvy young people. This creates a major challenge for platform operators and the regulator, Ofcom: how to implement robust age assurance systems that the public actually trusts and is willing to use.”

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Technical note:

Ipsos interviewed a representative sample of 2,196 adults aged 16+ across Great Britain. Polling was conducted online between the 1st-5th August 2025.
Data are weighted to match the profile of the population. All polls are subject to a wide range of potential sources of error.

117

I think the most important part of this exercise is that this is all hypothetical. The (US) government lags an understanding of technology by a decade to make meaningful decisions on it.

Let’s say we have the perfect privacy preserving implementation. That’s a tall order for the government to clip its own mass surveillance wings. The only way such an implementation would be forced is by the outcry of the majority. And even then it would be under constant threat of introducing back doors.

We all would like to believe that is the case everyone will champion for it, but it’s an even taller order to get people convinced of that. So even if you have a perfect implementation, most here would say don’t give the government an inch as they will eventually shoot for the mile. Better to block than have another attack surface of surveillance to handle.

This comes at a cost of parents needing to parent their kids and learn how to use parental controls on their devices, rather than having the block at the entry level. Obviously not all parents have the knowledge or couldn’t be bothered to deal with it.

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118

Yeah I am really seeing that Edit: (Not implying my solutions perfect, it’s not. Almost forgot to mention that). But there are some people who are willing to actually have a conversation than just saying “no I think your idea is stupid” or implying that I am stupid and that I don’t critically think enough.

But I don’t disagree with a lot of what you are saying.

Exactly, and as you say:

My way of thinking was that I think it is better to discuss to have a potential plan for the future when much more needed debate comes about. It is always better to sway people’s minds to start advocating early and thinking of said different solutions than not at all.

That is just my take.

Thanks for your comment!

119

I believe your idea is well intentioned but half baked. Even if we say “Zero Knowledge Cryptography”, that is essentially invoking incantations of the mathnonicon that has a chance of failing. Cryptography implementations have been and continue to break even if their theoretical counterparts are strong.

Even then, we have to rely on sites all hosting various solutions of said technology and not messing up the integration. We have to hope the solution implemented by contractors are not brittle. We have to assume the audit process is perfect and will catch corruption and the audit places don’t get stuffed by the administration with lobbied individuals who wouldn’t mind taking a bribe for overlooking some things. We’d have to trust the solutions are running the FOSS version, I mean who’s gonna check?

It’s an absolute minefield of OpSec. There’s more to this than a hardware token and zero knowledge proofs, there’s an entire software development lifecycle, rollout, and constant threat surface. I’d sweat bullets if I was even involved in securing this.

I do agree with this. However such a solution will require more than a 1 pager. I’d nearly expect an entire dissertation on this by top cyber security minds to sway me.

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120

:joy: Yeah, not perfect by any means. But yeah I agree even I mentioned somewhere that It would be tough sell as in not easy to implement.

(EDIT: Maybe I did not say it would be hard to implement. As I can’t find the comment of me saying it in this thread. I thought I did but maybe I didn’t? Could have been something, I thought of and was going to type but didn’t. But it is true a system like this has a lot of working parts and would need a lot of people advocating for it to work. And the right people working on it. But with that being said it’s been a long typing day and I think I am going to turn off the Internet for the night. Need to get some sleep. Thanks to everyone who participated. Will be back tomorrow for more discussion for anyone that wants to and I also have to reply to a previous comment).

But I did say I was optimistic about. But it is just a dream if all the pieces fell together correctly. If I can find the comment I’ll add it here (EDIT: could not find the comment it may not exist). But it is in a sea of comments.

I agree too about that it would need to be more than a 1 pager and I wouldn’t want you to think any other way when it comes to security. You got the right idea.

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121

Shifting to a slightly off-topic observation:

There was a user who posted similar statistics a month ago, but the data was collected instead by American pollsters. I asked him how well-informed he thought the polled individuals were on the subject, as it involves a policy with many intricacies that creates issues after implementation. I asked this because you can present an uninformed person with a problem they haven’t considered much and a proposed solution, and they are likely to accept it. Unfortunately, information about that wasn’t available in that case.

However, for these UK polls, there’s data about the questions answered that suggest a clear picture of how well-informed the respondents were. Specifically, 60% of those surveyed were not even aware of the Online Safety Act at the time of the survey.

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The Ipsos poll includes other questions as well. Half of the respondents aren’t confident that the act will prevent minors from viewing harmful content. A majority believe that minors will find ways to bypass the verification efforts. So, the polls show that people support this new policy that they don’t think it’s that effective, that most of them were not even aware of until the survey began, and that half of them wouldn’t comply with it themselves.

@jonah has already mentioned the idea of the tyranny of the majority in this thread, but I wanted to stress this point with this observation. If you want a bad policy, justify it on the basis that “the people want it”.

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From the same site that you provided:

Screenshot_20250920-221919
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I honestly don’t think this will stop children from accessing inappropriate content for many of the reasons others have already mentioned. This sounds like an administration nightmare. And yes, I read your proposal. It’s one step away from getting microchipped. Firstly, I don’t believe the government would stop at “just providing an anonymous age verified key” no matter how many safe gaps, advisory committees, and advocates you set up; secondly how long do you really think it would take for people to figure out a way to circumvent; and thirdly this would cost a whole lot of money to implement and rollout. Like, it would be an administrative nightmare. Not to mention that not everyone has government ID or a home or their own computer, so this is only accessible to the privileged.

If this is about parents determining what is appropriate, than why don’t we let the parents set limits and restrictions themselves? Why does the government need to be involved at all? If the government wants to help parents protect their kids, then provide parental controls free for all parents that they can install on their devices, and maybe they could offer free classes on how to keep their kids safe online? There are so many other cheaper and less invasive solutions to keeping kids from places they shouldn’t be rather than resorting to government oversights, restrictions and censorship.

Why are we forcing EVERYONE ELSE to take responsibility for other people’s kids when it is the PARENT’S responsibility to know what THEIR CHILD is up to? Why should I have to be burdened with proving my age and go out of my way and have the government all up in my business just to go online when I don’t even have kids? Why should I be hassled if I lose my key or if it gets stolen? Why do I have to verify MY age? I’m beyond over the age, the burden of proof needs to be with the parent and their child.

That is the parent’s job. They need to keep their kid safe, not me. They are the ones who buy their kids devices, they pay for their subscriptions, they decide how much screen time they should get and what apps they have installed and what accounts their kids can set up and so it seems reasonable to me that the onus is on them to make sure they know what content their kids are consuming online. Why would we need age verification at all if you are suggesting that parents would be the ones deciding what restrictions they can have anyways?

Most of the conversation I’ve been hearing regarding age verification centres around governemnt regulations deciding what’s appropriate content, and what is appropriate is subjective, so I don’t think your solution would fly. I mean ffs books about menstruation and the female reproductive system are being banned from many schools and libraries, so if you honestly believe that the government will just leave it up to parents to decide, I think that you are naive.

I fundamentally disagree with any kind of censorship or banning, even with stuff I think is abhorrent, even with stuff I think is immoral and wrong, because who gets to decide what is immoral and what is bad? Who’s morals? That’s why government and religion are supposed to be separate. We all have different moral and value systems so the government should not get to decide. AND when you ban something, you make it even more enticing, you create a black market and there will be that much more of an incentive to get the illicit thing that they are not allowed to have. Just take a look at the whole war on drugs fiasco, that certainly never stopped anyone from doing drugs.

IMO a safer and more effective approach is to teach your kid critical thinking, have a conversation with them, like a human being not a possession to control, but a unique individual with their own autonomy. Make the taboo topic a teachable moment, and teach your kids to be discerning about what is safe and what is not safe. Kids aren’t stupid. If you explain to them why a thing is wrong and teach them why it’s harmful, you will also teach them to make the right choices instead of pushing them underground where you don’t get to control who they talk to when they ask for advice. If you are not a safe person to ask questions, they will find someone else, and that person may not be safe.

I don’t need a lecture on the law, trust me. I know the judicial system will not keep me safe. And it does not protect anyone except for those who can afford an expensive lawyer and who can influence/blackmail powerful people. I also know that most cops (not all) but most cops hurt innocent people and protect bad people. That I have witnessed first hand. Ya that thing that happened to me? My abuser was a powerful man with connections.

Making people verify their age will not stop kids from being abused just like IDing people at the liquor store and the bar and shops that sell cigarettes or pronography also do not stop kids from drinking or getting into bars or smoking or accessing graphic material. Where is the evidence that age verification online would keep kids from inappropriate content?

I was that hurt kid, it started when I was 8 years old, and nobody protected me - enough people knew what was going on and NOBODY intervened. As a disabled person myself who has experienced the very things you are trying to prevent, I’m telling you that your proposal is not going to keep kids safe.

Listen, I understand you’re scared. I get that you are willing to give up your freedom for the illusion of safety when you are coming from a place of fear, when you’ve been hurt and see hurt. I get that… but I’m telling you, trying to improve upon a system of control and censorship and surveillance with more of the same is not the answer.

I’m not going to argue Trump’s innocence here because he is a convicted felon, a judge did find him guilty of sexual abuse and defamation and was ordered to pay E. Jean Carol 5 million dollars in compensation and he has paid off numerous victims to avoid litigation, he was convicted of 34 counts of fraud despite the overturned and dismissed cases and despite the fact that he has money and power to weaponize litigation and has stacked the supreme court with republicans who he has under his eye… but ya sure he’s innocent…

To wrap up my response and get back to the topic for this particular comment about your proposal, I think free parental controls and online safety courses and teaching parents about how to talk to kids about online safety is a more reasonable and less invasive solution and far much cheaper to implement than the administrative technological nightmare you are suggesting.

Most of the comments in this thread have pointed out many flaws and tried to explain to you why age verification is not a good idea. Please understand that the privacy violation you are suggesting is extremely dangerous and offensive to many people. It is a valiant attempt, but I think you are barking up the wrong tree and in the long run, it is not going to keep kids safe.

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124

I did. I really did. And I don’t think your solution is viable. I think it would be extremely expensive to implement and it would be an administrative nightmare. I personally believe teaching people to think for themselves is way more effective than telling them what content they are allowed to consume.

We don’t need adults to prove their age to use the internet, the onus lies with the parent to monitor their kid’s screen time. Give them free parental controls, offer free online safety classes, teach them how to talk to their kids about how to be safe… these are all reasonable and cost effective measures that keep the government from overreaching into private people’s personal lives. We don’t need legislation to do this!!!

I’m not seeing a whole lot of debate to be honest, I lot of people pointed out why your idea wasn’t a good idea. I feel like you are reacting from a place of fear, from defensiveness when people aren’t agreeing with you. This is a privacy forum. I mean, what did you expect? Of course people are going to have strong feelings about this total invasion of privacy. I know you mean well, but what you are proposing is terrifying.

I do not agree with the current administration, I do not agree with the restrictive legislation and loss of freedoms and erosion of basic human rights that we are watching play out right now. In this political climate, now more than ever, we need to be VERY CAUTIOUS about inviting the government into our lives, because I assure you… we give them a key, and they will lock you down and watch every move you make. They are NOT motivated by keeping children safe. That is just the lie they use to divide us.

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