The BBC has asked three of the UK’s biggest banks whether they would have a process for assisting with social media requests for age verification if it did become an official measure.
What a fucking dumbass comment here by the BBC. Using card transactions for age verification was literally written into the law!! The law only vaguely defined facial recognition and ID scanning, because the technology didn’t really exist yet, but explicitly mentions card transactions.
Hell, I’m convinced that was the main reason behind the law. MasterCard and VISA want more businesses to authenticate transactions, at a time when they’re increasingly choosing not to to save money on their fee.
Just give your most sensitive ID papers to a dodgy data broker…
Papers, please!
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so you’re predicting a tsunami of identity theft
probably already happened right?
Apparently you can already buy bulk bundles of British passports and drivers licences off the “dark web” - I’m not sure if they’re newer porn site ones or slightly older ones from the Discord thing a while back (or anywhere else which hoards IDs), but to some degree this already has happened.
would be great to see any sources you have on this stuff
it’s important
Sadly it’s merely an “apparently” at the moment, sorry - and only based on a handful of other people having said so. I’d be interested in seeing any newer concrete sources myself to be honest.
I’ve had a quick look around, and there’s some older ones below, but it kind of sounded like something more recent - as I’ve heard several unrelated people kicking off about it in the last month.
independent.co.uk - How your entire identity could be sold for £30 on the dark web This is mostly talking about Discord-era stuff, and is from January.
Malware Bytes - 153M+ driver’s licenses for sale on new dark web platform This one is recent, but based on American data - so not directly connected to the “Online Safety Act”, other than a warning.
Daily sceptic - They Said it Was to Protect Kids. Now Your Passport’s on the Dark Web – and Your NHS Record is Next This is basically a year old - and again is mentioning the discord stuff.
parliament.uk - The Online Safety Act: implementation and impact This is official government paperwork about the OSA being shit, but doesn’t mention any specific incident - I wonder if there’s an article connected to this which discusses it?
Metro - Hackers sell scans of 153,000,000 US driving licences – and drivers here could be next This is recent, and in a very widespread UK newspaper, but is covering a recent US related incident. I wonder if this is the source of hearing a lot of very separate people talking about it recently?
Anyway, sorry I can’t find more about it (yet!).
Even if so, would that mean we should let the tsunami grow even bigger and harm lots of young adults?
You’re putting your trust in the WEAKEST part of the chain here, on the companies to use this data in a trustworthy manner.
You can’t even put this down to naivety, it’s just pure recklessness and destruction of privacy rights.
Will you close down whole social media sites if they break the rules? No you won’t. What’s your answer if these companies, who function outside of the UK, steal all the information, sell it to data brokers or leak it?
It will be absolutely fucking nothing because it falls outside of UK borders.
This is the LEAST responsible action possible. Out of all outcomes, this will lead to the worst ending.
How does this protect us from Boomers voting based on what they read if Facebook? Or Karens on mumsnet, or divorced dads and incels on X?
I worry about that much more than teens seeing porn or LGBTQ+ info.
Edit: To be clear, I don’t worry about it all. If anything, I worry about them not getting info.
This is exactly the issue with how they’re dealing with this. Social media sites aren’t just harmful to children, they’re harmful to everyone. Instead of regulating against the people who access them, the government should be regulating the social media sites themselves - specifically their intentionally gamed algorithms.
Yep. Not just the gamed algorithms, but also the lack of fact checking and moderators. All the guardrails removed, and then algorithms pushing unhealthy engagement.
teens seeing porn or LGBTQ+ info
That is such a non-problem, that the other stuff you said should really stick out like a sore thumb. Of course, in reality, its the opposite.
I think if you go after the real issues, you are making voters looks at themselves. Which they won’t like.
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Literally anything apart from regulating the algorithm
As time passes Ofcom proves to be an even bigger fool. It is nothing more than an authoritarian scoped agency feeding on several layers of discrimination.
Yeah, of course we need device layer verification; yeah, of course teenagers are equivalent to 7-10yo or children - this is just delusional.
It has also acknowledged that “the risk of circumvention cannot be entirely eliminated”, and some children would succeed in bypassing the age checks.
Yeah.
I mean they could, but if they do I won’t be using their site. 4chan is still running though.
Right here, this is the danger.
Only half joking, people will use dodgier sites that ignore these rules and show them worse than if the bans hadn’t been put in at all.
