This seems… wild.
Although, it’s important to keep in mind that this is in the context of COPPA consent, which already required photo ID by the parent for children under the age of 13.
Still, I cannot see this truly going well. It’s smarter than just a picture, sure. But it’s done by a VC-funded private company and by Epic. I’d give it about 12 minutes until archives of thousands of uploaded mini-videos for verification appear on the net, probably public because someone forgot to properly patch the web server.
However to not go all crazy on it: This also opens up the can of “How do we do smarter online age verification, anyways?”. AI-based facial recognition isn’t a sensible one if you ask me, but we need a better way as other countries have already ruled that simply putting in your age or clicking an “i’m 18+”-button is not legally binding and hence cannot be used as verifiable age verification.
From what I understand, this is about COPPA consent.
So it’d be that if a child <13y tries to access X, it’d require that a parent use a specific app to provide that facial recognition to verify them as “Oh yeah you’re 25y+ according to our AI so we believe you could actually be the parent”, and then click that they give consent. At least that’s how I understand the technology.
What worries me is that they say that “Misjudgement by the AI based on skin tone or looks will not be a significant problem”. Which it historically has been with stuff like this. Just need a mother with small breasts that are in the video the AI sees and it’ll probably make her younger based on that fact.
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I just dislike the government oversight on things done at home. I’m not one for politics typically, but I feel like it’s the parents’ duty to curate what their child sees and that should be that. I just don’t think that on top of that there should be a government verification for the parent. That’s more than a little ridiculous to me.
Not to mention all the sort of privacy concerns that arise with a system like this.
And it still doesn’t address the fact that kids can still just lie and say they’re +18 on a sign up page. I knew many people that did this growing up.
COPPA is about restricting companies though, not parents.
Though granted, I don’t see how we could do a version that isn’t also a hassle for the parent.
Of course, but that’s also partially getting worked through already. In Germany there are calls for a verifiable 18+ check, meaning via a reader app for the ID card or something, something that checks that you’re actually 18+, not just saying it. Sure you could take your parents’ ID card, but … eh that’s not quite as easy as typing in a credit card number, what with having to NFC the card, then type in the PIN, then confirm the login again.
There are so many companies salivating at the thought of having access to that info. Call me a little rude, but I think that parents should just be more aware of what their kids do/see online instead of just offloading the blame onto the website that host sensitive content.
Of course, and it’s difficult to do this well ,which is why it stalled so far. At least some thought is given to privacy over here, so there’d need to be a way to say “This person here, this person is >18”. But not know the person or the actual age. Which is doable, it’s just not easy, especially because the service has to be ~100% reliable.
Agreed, and it’s just me I’m sure, but 18 is such an arbitrary number anyways. People all mature at different speeds and to limit someone who’s fine with that kind of content just because another person dislikes it by imposing a hard limit like a government id feels disingenuous, but I recognize a lot of people are going to disagree with me on that.
It’s a bit comedic, but I picture a scenario where a dad is trying to watch a movie with his kid and all of a sudden just before a scene where a quarter of a character’s boob is shown it stops and prompts him with a “Are you over 18? Please scan your face to continue.” And also would it even allow them if it also saw the kid there? Better yet take the kid out of the equation, it’s just an adult trying to watch an R rated movie or an M rated game.
Just some things to consider I guess.