In the UK, as part of the Online Safety Act. From 25th July, a whole host of websites, forums and social media applications became legally required to implement age verification. This was in order to prevent children from accessing content the government deems harmful.
While the notion of age verification for adult websites is not a new concept, with France attempting it in June. All it did was force the main adult websites used in France, to impose a three week self ban. Then after a legal challenge in court, have age verification paused, with adult websites once again being made accessible in France. [Ref: Lemonde.fr]
The reason for the lifting of the ban, was that age verification may not conform to EU data protection legislation. But we will come back to that in a moment, as it looks like legislation from the UK Online Safety Act may actually stick. With other European countries, including France now looking to follow the UK model.
While the UK Online Safety Act is in some respects comprehensive, with welcome elements that will help to protect children. Its reliance on geolocation based age verification, and questions about what happens to an individuals data privacy and security. Are seriously weakening its credibility.
So what’s the problem?
Within the first couple of days of the Online Safety Act being implemented, Proton VPN saw a 1,400 percent increase in demand for their VPN client [ref: Ars Technica]. Which goes to show how unpopular age verification is, and how easy it is to bypass.
Another problem is that the UK legislation is two broad, with to vague a definition of what is harmful. This is because UK politicians were too scared to directly take on the large social media companies, so instead focused on porn which no-one likes to admit they use.
So websites that inform or support communities, have become caught up in the law, and now find that they can either no longer remain open, or they now have to prevent the people they are trying to help, from gaining access to the information they need [Ref: Yahoo].
For example in a recent Telegraph article, it was reported that Wikipedia may be forced to use monthly quota’s in order to limit access to UK citizens who want to use the site. This is because it would appear that the Online Safety Act works by categorising content and the number of users using the service.
So because Wikipedia has more than 7 million users and it deals with topics that include suicide, self harm and hate speech. It would be classed as a category 1 service that requires age verification. However, if Wikipedia limits its number of UK users by setting quotas. Then it would drop down to a lower category and would no longer be subject to the stricter duties of the Online Safety Act.
But I still don’t see what the problem is?
Obviously age verification is designed to prove that you are an adult, who is allowed to access specific content. So in order to verify your age you will need to use a piece of information that only an adult will have.
For example a passport, credit card, or driving license to name but a few options. This information is then held either by the website or by a third party. So that when you access a restricted site, from a specific geographical location (ie the UK), your identity is automatically validated.
Unfortunately in order for this system to work, it needs to be agreed and enforced by every country in the world. So if as single country decides not to apply a similar law. All an individual need do is use a VPN client to bypass age verification, defeating the whole point of the system.
We then have the problem that age verification is not managed by a single neutral body. So if you use Reddit you will need to use Persona, but if you use BlueSky you will need to use Kid Website Service. Which brings up the question, who owns these companies, and more importantly who are they accountable to, and which privacy laws (if any) do they recognise?
You then have to take into consideration that age verification companies will probably see this as the beginning of a golden age. With age verification slowly expanded to be used when visiting another country, voting, or opening a bank account. So in the future I can see these companies charging for their services or worse still, selling data to marketing and advertising companies to maximise their profit margins.
Which is important because there are no guarantees that a company can’t be hacked or have a data breach. Something that in this day and age is becoming more common, and because the information stored by an age verification service is so inviting. Could lead to more hacking, and a massive increase in online blackmail, identity theft or fraud.
But what do you think?
Content for August
This month we will be releasing a couple of update videos. The first will be for restoring an Intel Apple Macintosh computer, back to a previous state. With the second showing how from the CROSH of ChromeOS you can find out what local IP address your computer is using.
As support for Windows 10 ends and with Microsoft pushing people to install Windows 11. We thought it would be a good idea to take a look at its Advanced start up settings and tools. Something that could be very useful if you find that you need to trouble shoot Windows 11.
Then towards the end of the month we will be taking a look at how you stop an Apple MacBook from auto booting when you lift the lid or connect it to a power supply. A feature that is super annoying if you like to power down your computer when you are not using it.
Finally as part of our Synology BeeStation series, we are going to take a look at how you use your BeeStation to backup USB drives. Something that could be really useful, if you have to store data on USB drives rather than use cloud storage.
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