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Archr

@ Archr @lemmy.world

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3 yr. ago

  • An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification

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  • I'm sorry that you have to deal with that. IDs should be as easy as reasonable to get. (fucking SAVE act).

    You are right, this could be used as a stepping stone towards gathering IDs and the deanonymization of the internet. We (Cali residents) need to make sure that we contact our reps and are heard. Voice our concerns with this law in its current form and that we will be up in arms if they go any closer towards ID verification being required.

    It depends on how the system is implemented. It is entirely possible that MS will implement it with ID verification or face scans, since the law does not forbid them from doing that. But that is why the open source community/linux foundation need to make sure that we put forward a reasonable solution rather than just "forcing" users in Cali to go back to using windows.

  • An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification

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  • Just to reiterate I do not think this law is good and I would get rid of it in an instant but...

    I don't really see this as a law to protect children. I see this as a law that focuses on the parents. The parents become liable under this law if they circumvent the system and their child is hurt. If developers decide to flaunt this law and ignore the signals then they would be liable.

    So if you don't have children this law should effectively not affect you other than you might need to choose which age bracket you are in. Which sounds like such a small price to pay for making parents take responsibility over their children on the internet.

  • An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification

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  • I'd love for you to go into more detail on how this is surveillance since that seems to be your main concern.

    The law does not require providing IDs or face scans or any other identifiable information. There are clauses in the law limiting where the data gets sent to and that if data does need to be sent then it is the minimum that is necessary.

    The law only requires that an account holder "indicate[s] the birth date, age, or both, of the user of that device". Outside of the abstract the law not once mentions any type of verification that must happen.

    Also it's a California law. It doesn't affect anyone outside of Cali so if you are affected take it up with your os provider or fork your distro.

  • An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification

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  • I have seen this comment a lot and find it really funny.

    I really hope you are just being pedantic and are not running all your systems as root only.

    Users in linux are meant to limit what you are allowed to do for a reason.

  • An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification

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  • The law only specifies "computer, mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device."

    Which is extremely vague. It appears that the intention was to just affect end user devices. Not specific purpose systems.

  • An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification

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  • An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification

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  • Just want to clarify that nowhere in the actual law does it require verifying the age of the user. It does not require IDs or face scans.

    https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1043

    Please read it. It is a very short law <15 minute read tbh.

    The law does exactly what you ask for. Parents setup the device and put their child's age. If they lie or circumvent the system then the parents get fined if their child is affected by content on the internet.

  • An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification

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  • I'm not sure exactly why people keep bringing up privacy concerns here. The law does not require collecting IDs or face scans. It requires os providers to add a screen where the account holder specifies the age or DOB of the user. The OS is not allowed to send that information to 3rd parties unless it is required by the law. And when they do need to send it, they are required to send the minimum information (just the age range, not even the DOB).

    This law actually does more to penalize the parents that give their children free access to the internet. If the parent circumvents or enters the wrong age then they are penalized.

    In addition it also forbids developers from asking for more verification data unless they are confident that your age range is incorrect. Which stops developers, for instance Discord, from requesting IDs without reason.

    I do not think this law is written well at all. But I also would not mind more structure to how age attestations are done.

    I'm sure many parents are capable of monitoring their children online. They either just don't care or don't think they should have to.

  • An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification

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  • The law only specifies "computer, mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device."

    Which is extremely vague. It appears that the intention was to just affect end user devices. Not specific purpose systems.

  • An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification

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  • The law only penalizes instances that affect children. So by circumventing this law does not mean you would be charged with any fines. But if you circumvent it and your child uses the device then you would be liable no more than 7500$ (since in this case it would be an intentional violation).

    I am not a lawyer. This is just what I understand the law to penalize.

    OS providers and developers are also not liable if you set an incorrect age for your child intentionally or by mistake, only you would be.

    But if they flaunt this law (do not try to comply with best effort) then they would be liable for each affected child.

    Edit: sorry this didn't exactly answer your question. How they enforce it would be that it is tacked onto other charges from what I understand.

    Edit 2: oh and children can't be charged, only adults (18+).

  • An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification

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  • The law only specifies "computer, mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device."

    Which is extremely vague. It appears that the intention was to just affect end user devices. Not specific purpose systems.

  • An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification

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  • In my opinion, it is foolish and shortsighted of these developers to just block the state and move on. (I do live in Cali but hear me out)

    Whether people like it or not we are stuck with this law now. A law that leaves all of the implementation details up in the air. The big corporations, Microsoft and Apple, are not going to be pulling out of California. Do we really want to leave all the power to determine how this system works to them? Leave the 4th largest economy in the world entirely in their hands?

    If we ignore what is going on here then we will give up our chance to even propose a minimal acceptable solution to this law. One that does not require ID or face scans.

    I desperately hope that the linux foundation is taking this seriously and is already looking at implementing a solution.

    This law aims to place at least some of the responsibility back onto the parents that allow their children to run wild on the internet. Is the law perfect? Absolutely not. Would I repeal it if I could? Yes, of course. But this is the hand we are dealt.

    (also it is midnightbsd)

  • An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification

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  • This was passed and signed last October. Why is this just hitting the news cycle?

  • An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification

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  • That is not something I had considered, I fully agree.

    So many devices are built around SBCs running linux. I guess my first thought was that it is more about how the device is used and not what that actual OS is. But then how would the OS even be able to tell the difference.

    This is a distinction that they should have spelled out explicitly in the law.

  • An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification

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  • It saddens me that someone who is willing to stand so strongly against an oppressive law would work to discourage discussion about those laws on free social platforms.

    I hope you can consider your words next time and we can enter into a good faith discussion over the merits and demerits of any law.

  • An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification

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  • I appreciate the insight. And you are right, that was my lack of understanding about how it could be struck down in court.

    I do want to talk briefly on your point about these other devices where the law might actually apply since I have seen a few people bring up this point.

    I the definition of an OS provider the law asserts that an OS is "computer, mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device." (emphasis mine)

    To me this clearly excludes those other types of devices because routers, tvs, etc are not general purpose.

    As far as public computers I think that is a really good point and speaks to the vagueness of the law. There is no clear direction on how that works in such a common use case.

    Coming from the engineering side as well and I've put more time, thought, and effort into project proposals than it feels like they put into this law.

  • An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification

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  • I fully agree. None of this should be required to operate a computer. We should focus on the parents that give their children free range of the internet without teaching them anything and the school ciriculum which is lacking in this department as well.

    To me it feels like the lawmakers have some good intentions with this law, but it was rushed through so quickly that they forgot to ask themselves how this actually would be applied and who they are actually trying to protect.

    Edit: oh. Also I just wanted to point out that outside of the title and abstract the law does not use the word verify/verification. It just says "indicate" which is way too vague.

  • An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification

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  • Totally a valid point.

    Just to clarify I am not for this law. I do not think that this should have been passed. But also the law seems to have some good intentions and I don't want to jump to conclusions after just reading headlines.

    It feels like the law makers want to standardize and restrict how this age verification works without actually providing any guidance whatsoever on how to implement such a system.

    I'm curious to see what systems companies come up with and what major flaws they will have (intentional or not) that data collectors will exploit.

  • An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification

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  • This actually speaks to one of the concerning things about this law. There is a section forbidding developers from collecting additional information (unless they have confident information that your age is incorrect). But there is no such clause for OS providers.

    Developers shall not "Request more information from an operating system provider or a covered application store than the minimum amount of information necessary to comply with this title."

    Or

    "Share the signal with a third party for a purpose not required by this title."

    This means that discord could not collect IDs or face scans without confidence that your age is incorrect. But windows can still require whatever they want.

    But I guess silver lining is that neither of them can sell or even share the data with 3rd parties. Pretty minimal silver lining though.