alt Hacker NewsAge verification is merely the background task to set up infrastructure for OS to provide many many other signals about who's using the device.
Age signals from the OS? Need to provide a channel of information available to applications. Applications already talk to servers with unchecked commonality.
Biometric data? Today it unlocks your private key. Tomorrow it's used to verify you are the same person that was used during sign-up -- the same that was "age-verified".
Next year, the application needs to "double-check" your identity. That missile that's coming to you? Definitely not AI-controlled, definitely not coming to destroy the "verified" person who posted a threatening comment about the AI system's god complex. Nope, it's coming to deliver freedom verification.
Replies
Not just governments, though.
I've wondered if FaceID and the Android counterpart are actively creating an extraordinary labeled dataset for facial expressions at the point of sale.
With users trained to scan their face before every transaction, tech companies could correlate transactions to facial expressions, facial expressions to emotions, and emotions to device content. I can imagine algorithms that subtly curate the user experience, selectively showing notifications, content, advertising to coax users towards "retail therapy".
“This isn’t freedom, this is fear”
Cpt America in the Winter Soldier
The application has access to your entire home folder, isn't that enough information?
Indeed. They hate us for our freedoms.
Interesting points! I see what you mean about age verification being used as a foundation for more signals in the OS. I think the tricky part is balancing privacy and verification — making sure applications can verify identity or age without over-collecting sensitive data. Biometric verification could be useful, but it also raises questions about how much control users have over their personal information. Curious to hear how you’d design it in a way that’s secure but respects user privacy.
>Age signals from the OS? Need to provide a channel of information available to applications. Applications already talk to servers with unchecked commonality.
This is a non-issue because it's almost certainly going to be gated behind a permission prompt. There are more invasive things sites/apps can ask for, and we seem to be doing fine, eg. location. Moreover is it really that much of a privacy loss if you go on steam, it asks you to verify you're over 18, and the OS says you're actually over 18?
>Biometric data? Today it unlocks your private key. Tomorrow it's used to verify you are the same person that was used during sign-up -- the same that was "age-verified".
Given touch id was introduced over a decade ago, and the associated doom-mongering predilections did not come to pass, I think it's fair to conclude it's a dud.
Nobody stops the government from sending goons to your door right now for a snarky comment. Some govts in fact do it today. It is also cheaper than ai rocket and more precise too