Apologies if this isn’t the right place to ask this, but I thought actual developers with a deep understanding of how technology actually works would be the people to ask!

If you were tasked with setting up a safe and secure way to do this, how would you do it differently than what the UK government is proposing? How could it be done such that I wouldn’t have to worry about my privacy and the threat of government suppression? Is it even theoretically possible to accomplish such a task at such a scale?

Cheers!

EDIT: Just to be clear: I’m not in favour of age verification laws. But they’re on their way regardless. My question is purely about the implementation and technology of the thing, rather than the ethics or efficacy of it. Can this seemingly-inevitable privacy hellscape be done in a non-hellscapish way?

  • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
    1·
    7 months ago

    Full disclosure, I’m not a full time dev, but am in IT and do some minor software development work.

    Here’s my proposal:

    Reverse the verification. Don’t verify adults. Have extra actions to allow children to access the internet, and make it the legal responsibility of those adults that purchase the devices verify that a device given to a child can only access the child-friendly internet. We already have laws constructed like this and they work pretty well. Cigarettes and alcohol are largely out of the hands of young children. No its not perfect, but no system will be.

    The default behavior of any device is full adult access. However, devices will have a service menu that you can put the device in child-friendly mode. However, it’s a one way change. Once its in child-mode, there’s no going back.

    Then, sell devices that are able to access the internet only to 18 year olds and older. An adult can put the device in child-friendly mode and give it to a child. An adult can also let the child use their adult mode device when it is under the supervisor of the adult. Any child found unsupervised with an adult mode device will be treated the same way as if they were found with a fifth of whiskey or a carton of cigarettes. Any adult found giving adult-mode devices to children will be charged the same way as if they were giving alcohol and tobacco to children. Perhaps a repeat offender adult will have their ability to buy electronics capable if internet access made illegal for a time as punishment.