You’re right. The wording does not preclude a browser. I think the intention is to target app stores: Google Play Store, Steam, Microsoft App Store, etc., but the definitions are pretty loose.
I don’t see that as the central premise of the site at all. It’s all about how poorly defined the law is: the same sort of thing you are talking about. It comes up with a wacky way to comply with the law that technically fits all the wording. (Though it acknowledges that the legal system probably won’t adhere to the trap, and then goes on to show other concerns.)
That said, I will also point out that a physical interaction relies on visual information about the person. Having that on a computer would be surveillance, and, as you said, it’s not super accurate. It’s why people get carded for the things where age actually matters. And needing ID to use full versions of software is something people also object to, both for utility and privacy reasons.
And no, I’m not saying this law requires that, necessarily. It depends on how much trouble you’d get in for inaccurate information. Just, without verification, this really accomplishes nothing to protect children, while with verification it has privacy and usability concerns.
For example, Meta was recently convicted for dishonesty and harming children.
It is a cynical observation that this type of unfeasible and misguided legislation represents an attempt by some corporations to shield themselves, instead of examining their own business practices which are deleterious to all users, not only children.
This is a truly terrible law for many reasons. But the big one is it’s not an “age check”, its a verifiable government issued ID. That’s the only practical way to reliably check age (other techniques end up with this kind of hilarity)
So this law is saying to install any operating system on any computer I need to provide a government issued ID and have it verified by the government. That’s INSANE! That makes the PATRIOT act look like nothing.
There is no verification or ID needed. You self-certify the age when you create a user account.
That itself is pretty harmless, but there are valid concerns that it will leak age bracket information to unsavory actors.
Yeah, I can see where that’s a legitimately worrisome concern. Meanwhile, I already have operating systems installed on my computers. Do we assume that
a) a few sites that offer age-restricted services would reject connections from my legacy operating systems?
b) internet service providers will be required to block anyone from connecting using those legacy operating systems?
c) fake digital IDs won’t proliferate like torrents and napster and etc and make the government look foolish and ridiculous?
d) they’ll find a way to block virtual machines from letting the new age-verification versions of operating systems to be installed if the native host OS doesn’t have age verification on it? and/or they can tell if you’re using a virtual machine? (This seems overwhelmingly unlikely unless they incorporate it into the laws they’re writing)
Computers and OSes don’t have ages though. They’re not people. And people aren’t computers.
This seems analogous to embedding your age into your car’s engine. What happens when someone else drives it?
A reasonable implementation would make age an attribute of a user account.
Everyone uses a user account when accessing any computer made in the last 20 years, at least. Even if it’s a default account they never think of.
The main new wrinkle is that this scheme requires each individual user to have a distinct user account for themselves alone, not shared with anyone. The open-access no-login family computer won’t work.
I didn’t research this law, but I don’t think it imposes any requirements or legal obligations on the users to accurately and distinctly report their age to the affected operating system, because that would seem to be a big step up from imposing requirements on operating system makers. Governments regulate industries constantly. They don’t regulate individuals as much.
But your device already knows who you are.
I’m not sure exactly how this particular plan is designed, but it seems trivial to have the device confirm your age and then only send out one but of information to sites requesting confirmation, that being a boolean verified/unverified status. In that scenario, there’s no identifying information actually being sent to whatever site is verifying your age.
Again, I haven’t looked deeply enough into this particular proposal to know if this is what it does or not, but if it’s something along those lines, I don’t see what the privacy concern is.
I find it hard to be concerned over someone handing info about my government ID to the government.
That is exactly what the law requires.
There is nothing in the law that makes it illegal to create one account with adult-level permissions and giving the login information to your children if that’s what you want to do.
Exactly correct. This requires developers of operating systems to add systems requiring age-bracketing for all accounts. And it requires them to provide an API to provide that age-bracket to apps and app stores. It puts no requirements on end users at all.
Along with your face, transactions history, voice, anything and everything you’ve posted online, and whatever other data they can grab.
My face is already on my ID, so the government already has my face (as of like 5 years ago but still).
I don’t follow how a toggle that’s sent to websites you access that says “Yes/No this person is over 18” involves your face, transactions history, voice, anything and everything you’ve posted online, and whatever other data they can grab.
Because that’s the point of all these so-called age verification laws, surveillance and data mining. They get passed “for the children”, and then it gets implemented in as intrusive a fashion as possible. Legally mandated spyware.
So they’ve made a law mandating multi-user operating systems now? It wasn’t that long ago you could sit down at many computers and just start computing, no login or credentials required.
I know that’s rare now, and considered insecure, but should it really be illegal? Did they even think about that sort of thing before writing the bill?
You haven’t answered the question. If age verification software simply sends a yes/no boolean variable that notates if a user is or is not over 18, how does this lead to surveillance and data mining? Please explain.
Because there’s no way that’s how it would actually work. Data mining is the point, therefore that’s how it will be implemented. Politicians pushing for such laws always make similar claims, and it’s always a lie.