You keep acting like it’s just porn. They are blocking tons of things. My cousin can’t access some sims game without verification. There are blocks on any content deemed dangerous from political stuff to health related matters etc.

Of course you get the dopes out there who say if you’ve nothing to hide you have nothing to fear but you can use that to justify anything. Cookies is nowhere near on the same level as what this is asking.

26 minutes ago, Iz 🌟 said:

Doing 'if you got nothing to hide you got nothing to fear' in the big 2025 is certainly a choice. The internet requires anonymity to function for good because of the persistence of data, and allowing anonymity is an essential tool against government surveillance. Governments should be obligated to protect our rights to privacy if we so choose and that right is essential for the proper human rights of freedom of thought and expression, otherwise known as free speech.

The company I've looked into most is Persona, as that's the one that's verifying on Reddit, and I have come away basically convinced that I should not put my ID in there. Their privacy policy states that they either destroy it after completion of verification OR keep it for up to three years for AI training purposes, depending on their interactions with the customer, and that latter use, because they're an American company, is outside of GDPR. They've also been breached with their services for LinkedIn multiple times. I may be misinterpreting that but I do not trust that. Similarly looking into some of the other companies that are being used isn't much better.

I completely expect that anyone with the desire could reconstruct a complete picture of my online activities, even if I don't use my real name on most sites I use regularly, so actually by contrast to the suggestion of 'live and let live' I'm very very careful with what further data I share with any websites, and this is far more than I am ever willing to share.

How sure are you about the GDPR RE the American company? My knowledge on GDPR is it doesn't matter what nationality the company is, if the breach occurs with EU/UK data then they are still bound by the same principles and you can ask the company what data they hold on you and they are liable if the data is mishandled.

And I've not experienced the age verification with anything outside of adult material yet so I can't comment. I would agree for certain content it seems like it is going too far and goes against the principles of the bill, but I've no experience of this myself thus far.

8 hours ago, Rooney said:

How sure are you about the GDPR RE the American company? My knowledge on GDPR is it doesn't matter what nationality the company is, if the breach occurs with EU/UK data then they are still bound by the same principles and you can ask the company what data they hold on you and they are liable if the data is mishandled.

And I've not experienced the age verification with anything outside of adult material yet so I can't comment. I would agree for certain content it seems like it is going too far and goes against the principles of the bill, but I've no experience of this myself thus far.

Seen limited experiences from what they actually do with GDPR, but the lack of confirmation on data deletion is worrying to me, and I believe the worry about them being American is that the Patriot Act supersedes it, and should the data be physically stored in the US, and not a European datacenter, then that also loses protection. Maybe a breach in either fashion is unlikely but it is actually worth standing up for and saying 'no, data collection has gone too far'. This would be less of a problem if they deleted it as soon as they saw it and didn't say 'we might keep it for 3 years', or they didn't use ID or face scans, or they didn't have numerous clauses about what they might use the ID for for their purposes, even if it's just training data, preferably all of those.

It's an effective monopoly of insecurity should you wish to continue to use the services as you always have, as an adult, who shouldn't need to verify because parents can't restrict their kids properly and that's my principle objection.

For a world that thinks children are the future (or insert any campaign slogan that promotes having children purely in order to produce more workers), we would rather have iPads, or now governments, do it.

The danger specifically is the prospect of something retroactively being classed as 'inappropriate' leading to punishment or removal of service.

America has a Christocentric leadership right now. It's not beyond the pale that criticism of Christianity or at least of its leaders could be designated 'inappropriate' in the near future; at which point Persona has a list of the IDs of people who've done that and who 'deserve punishment' as a result...

Yeah agreed that could and in all likelihood will eventually happen (or some sort of retrospective action against past criticism of ANYTHING), every if many years down the line.

Them keeping your facial scans is awful, erm have you ever posted a photo on Facebook, Instagram etc etc your face is already there if they wanted it 🙄

You would be surprised how many people don’t use Instagram.

I really don’t understand how people are so nonchalant and basically accepting big corp using their data. It’s the most valuable thing that currently exists and you’re fine giving it out for free to companies that do not and will never have your best interests at heart? Okay. Also government issued IDs?! Are you uploading them on social media too? Internet is supposed to be anonymous, it’s the most powerful tool for building communities to, for example, criticize, plan and fight regimes. Now you’re just placing 100% of trust and control over yourself into whatever government your politically illiterate neighbours might choose. That’s not how the world works at this stage in time, the age of naïveté is over, fascism is on the rise and we have to keep governments in check at all times. That’s the biggest fear and concern I have over this whole shitshow personally.

Arguably this could also be said to be discrimination against people who wear head or face coverings in the first instance.

In the second instance this could then be weaponised against for instance, women who live in homes where they are encouraged to wear head or face coverings who are then discovered to be accessing 'adult' material, as that will be implicit proof that they 'revealed their face' in order to get access to the material.

I'm also not sure it's been mentioned in this thread but this face ID trusts that there is a standard human face that looks a certain age. What about people who have had their faces harmed by attacks or disasters, or about people who are starting off with a facial difference. For that matter, how do people with a visual impairment input their ID? Accessibility of new tools is something I work with and that doesn't seem to have been considered as part of this rollout at all.

And if it relies on a government-issued ID only, well, that's currently then a paywall to accessing the material at all, in your own home, on your own device that you paid for, via your own internet subscription you also pay for.

I’m also wondering, who’s doing the actual legitimacy verification? Can’t one just photoshop an ID? :’)

16 minutes ago, pavi said:

I’m also wondering, who’s doing the actual legitimacy verification? Can’t one just photoshop an ID? :’)

This has been done.

My concern would be that they find some way to parse the databases in the future and auto-block everyone who looks to have used a fake or generated ID to get around the requirement.

Funnily enough, I'm also not sure what actually counts as ID for it. Does anyone know if it specifically has to be a British ID? If so I'm shit out of luck and this is indirect discrimination against immigrants too.

Theres no f***ing way i am uploading a gov id that can be used to commit identity fraud if its leaked among other joyous consequences to some ropey ass for-profit company. Coz if the id check free then my biometrics and id are the product and imma take a hard pass.

This was just so shodily implemented. The uk isnt alone theres an EU equivalent buzzing around in the background an all, so there is like a half block on the continent right now, its so weird as some sites are fine but twitter is even less useable than before, coz im not being funny but that site is only useful for politics and porn these days and both seem to be triggering the shit content restriction (unless its a neo nazi take, which is of course free to view and was promoted to a promenant place in your feed).

the one i trust the least with my id is twitter. no f***in way am i giving musk that. Twitters webpage says its gonna use ai to verify users as over 18, or their account age. like my account has been active by 16. surely your ai can already f***in pick that up...... ah of course, its f***in vapourware, just like everything else in the elon musk pyramid scheme.

On 31/07/2025 at 22:28, J00prstar said:

Funnily enough, I'm also not sure what actually counts as ID for it. Does anyone know if it specifically has to be a British ID? If so I'm shit out of luck and this is indirect discrimination against immigrants too.

If you have a Irish passport the CTA will be fine!