There has been a lot of swirl around various pieces of age verification legislation and how different platforms and operating system developers are responding. I believe strongly in privacy and that the responsibility for the online activities of children is that of the parents. That said, as a parent, I think we need better tools available, especially for those who are less technically inclined. Here are my ideas:
- A standard needs to be established that is open source and cross platform.
- It should run at the OS level.
- It should be controlled by someone with administrator access to the device / OS (a parent in the case of devices used by children).
- It should be completely optional for that administrator whether they want to turn it on or not.
- The only input should be birth year of the child whose account is being set up. No other personally identifiable info should be included.
- All relevant sites/apps/platforms such as social media and NSFW sites should be required to honor the age indicator.
It needs to be assumed that at some point, any kid who really wants to learn will find a way to circumvent any controls but parents do need better tools.
If your local laws say you need to be 18 to be considered an adult, then depending on the year, you’re either going to be denying an adult access for (average) six months, or illegally letting a child have access for (average) six months.
The laws can be written to reference the approximate age. Antoine who will be 18 by December 31st of that year could be considered 18 for the purposes of the law.
That’s never going to fly. Imagine that person posting nudes, which would be considered illegal by that same lawmaker.