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[JEMC]

Zkuq said:

JEMC said:

Can someone explain to me why all those sites, and now apparently also game stores, need to have their own way to verify the user's age? Has no one thought about doing it at the OS level so users only have to go through that once instead of giving away their information to God knows how many places?

As far as I know, based on what little I've heard, the UK half-assed its age restriction law and refused to do anything to ensure age verifications are done sensibly or in a unified manner. They just mandated age restrictions and didn't do much more.

Also, it can't be done at OS level only, because websites don't have access to the OS. If you want OS support, you need browsers aboard too. Now you need to get all major operating systems and browsers aboard, so have fun trying to standardize that! All in all, this seems like a terrible mess, and I'm not sure anyone is sure of the best way to handle the whole age verification thing, especially in a privacy-aware manner. Or maybe some parties are aware of a way, but I bet that's not what's going to happen, at least any time soon.

Thanks for the reply.

If it can't be done at an OS level, then maybe just do it once for the browser and let it handle it with the sites you visit. It would still involve giving your data to less parties.

Standards can be a pain in the arse, but if something like the EU made one for all the members, other countries would also adopt it.

All in all, I still think the best way to handle this hot mess is actually very easy: make parents do the parenting! All OSes and browsers have privacy settings that allow to us control the sites we can access. We can also create several users accounts so that each member of the family can have a personalized experience more suited for its age.
But of course, that requires that parents get involved and actually exercise their duties, and that's a very impopular take for many people, that don't want to do the work.