[yunruse]

If every website needed verification, why not simply move the verification to the device or ISP level? This seems like an authoritative move to track users across websites, and another good reason to keep using a VPN.

Certainly a terrifying amount of responsibility and upkeep for each individual website. If the UK wishes to establish this and not want it to lead to an insane amount of privacy leaks, it should consider developing a technology that makes it work in a privacy-respecting way, like the European Age Verification Solution [0]'s Zero-Knowledge Proofs.

[0] https://ageverification.dev

[Aurornis]

> the UK wishes to establish this and not want it to lead to an insane amount of privacy leaks, it should consider developing a technology that makes it work in a privacy-respecting way

They don’t care about the privacy aspect.

A key part of effective age verification is associating an identity with the account. They don’t just want to confirm that the person accessing the site has access to an ID of anyone who is 16+, they want to make an effort to associate the ID with the account. It’s the same reason why when you present an ID to buy alcohol they look at the photo to make sure the ID is actually yours, not just that you have an ID of someone older in your possession.

[idiotsecant]

Breaking privacy is the point, why would the UK government do anything to impede that?

World governments are going to crack down hard on the free internet over the next century. A distributed solution is sorely needed.

[wongarsu]

Even if we keep it at the website level, a government-run solution that allows you to verify your age without revealing your identity would be the logical solution. There is no good reason why they need to know who I am to know how old I am. The EU seems to be headed that way. The UK doesn't seem to care, almost as if associating real names with accounts was the whole point and saving children was just a convenient excuse for them

[4gotunameagain]

To the device ??

That will turbocharge the draconian lockdown of computing. You will never own a computer you buy every again if that is pushed.