- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- privacy@programming.dev
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- privacy@programming.dev
AB-1043 “Age verification signals: software applications and online services.”
Text https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1043
Other info https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1043
California AB 1043 signed. Mandatory os-level, device-level, app store, and even developer-required age verification for all computing devices.
Edit: altered title from “ID check” to “Age Verification check”
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sudo apt install apache2do you have a valid drivers licence?yplease type in your drivers licence numberTake it from a Brit… It’s not about the children. It’s never about the children.
One of the architects of Project 2025 confessed on secret camera that the purpose of age verification laws is a de facto porn ban.
I’m sorry but you’re using that term wrong. You mean a de jure porn ban.
A de facto porn ban would mean that you actually couldn’t get any. And that’s just ridiculous.
Like drugs are illegal de jure, but de facto getting weed pretty much anywhere in the world is not a challenge. Usually even easier than getting alcohol as an underage person. Not that I have experience of that in the past few decades (being underage that is).
I mean I guess it’s “de facto” in sofar that it’s not exactly presciptively de jure illegal when it’s done like that. So in that sense you are right to use it like that, but eh. I disagree with who I was when I started writing this. No matter we’re on lemmy.
Maybe for them. But for governments in general the point is that age verification is ID verification and it means everything you do online or on any electronic device can be surveilled and tied to your real identity. And that makes political dissent a lot harder to organize without being shut down.
Why do I need to show my ID to install Gentoo?
Because how can Persona (and the government) know who is using Gentoo without an ID requirement? What is someone doesn’t use javascript when browsing the internet?
Easy, their next target will be business and browser.
I’d like to see them try. Is it during installation or download?
Oops, forgot to compile that module. Oh well.
He can go fuck himself. “Dems are the good guys!!!” Fuck off. This isnt about protecting kids. Its about tracking, profiling and data collection. No doubt to sell to 3rd parties. Fuck all these cunts who push this shit.
There’s no fighting 21st century fascism without breaking this law.
This is so much more effectively evil than ehat the trump admin has been doing holy shit.
This might genuinely be world leading evil.
Evil has won and has pulled up the ladder behind it to make sure no one can challenge it.
*to make sure nobody can challenge it without illegally building or stealing a ladder.
Good luck enforcing that on Linux.
That’s probably the point.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft and Google lobbied for this to prevent open source from encroaching on their terf
Likely yes, though it won’t matter to me. I’ll recompile from suitably modified source code if it comes to that.
They might try to stop Linux from booting at all with locked bootloaders.
That would be the point at which things - expensive, crucial things - would start catching on fire for reasons that has nothing to do with anything I might be doing.
that would basically destroy the internet considering how many servers - including microsofts own sites - run on linux
There’s precedent that source code is protected speech, so maybe Gentoo is about to become a lot more popular.
And who doesn’t enjoy using 90% of their system resources to compile the 10% remainder all the time?
You can use binary versions if you want.
reinstalling OS is fairly easy. I expect utlities to “correct age error”.
The bigger distros will probably do it, especially any that have an organization to fund their development.
That have funding from American organizations, or are an American organization themselves. Possibly even Californian only.
You just know that when a bill is titled “Protect the little children from eternal suffering bill”, it’s gonna contain some real fucked up anti-privacy nonsense in it.
Mandatory os-level
Cute attempt, but libre software - as always - remains superior and impossible to control. That’s by design. Write any law you want, I can modify whatever line of code implements this stupid check, remove it, and move on.
You mean the libre software that is all primarily stored on AWS, Azure, or Google infrastructure, especially github?
Linux is the giant it is using email as the primary infrastructure for development. We will be fine.
Can’t we just fork it over to something like Codeberg eventually? I know it’s a lot to move over, but with time and patience, it seems achievable.
Read the link yall
The bill requires:
- OSes to take user birthday during account creation
- this info is binned into categories (<13, 13-16, 16-18, >18)
- the category info must be made available to basically all software
- software is supposed to use this data to age gate content but is not allowed to send this data to 3rd parties
What this bill does not do:
- Your full birthday is specifically not to be sent to every application
- OSes are not being asked to check your id it doesn’t say the OS should do anything to verify the birthday, just that it should record it
- There isn’t anything to prevent you from entering 1/1/2000 instead of your real birthday
Honestly this doesn’t seem that bad to me. If anything it’s a little pointless. This style of age verification is basically universally already used. I guess you could read this as forcing OSes to have parental controls.
I do think there is a bit of a privacy issue in this information being shared with every program, but they attempt to minimize this using the binning (so ironically it really only hurts the privacy of teenagers since for adults it will just say >18), and this information is supposed to not be shared with 3rd parties (but we all know Facebook and Google are going to do whatever they can this info, pushing the limits of that part of the law, or just waiting to be sued and paying the fine when it happens).
I honestly think most Linux distros will just implement it.
Honestly this doesn’t seem that bad to me
A state governor doesn’t get to decide what kind of data libre software must or must not collect.
A state governor doesn’t get to decide
Correct, it takes a whole process and a bunch of politicians to write a law like this.
We use 1/1/1970, the Unix epoch.
Wild! I am exactly the same age as the Unix Epoch.
How cool! :)
How surprising that’s my birthday too!
As a parent, I reckon a voluntary system like this (if I understand correctly) could be very handy. I could create a child account and automatically get age gated content for it.
And when said child is smart enough to circumvent the system, then they deserve whatever content they manage to get their hands on. I’d be so proud.
But I’m sure capitalism would find a way to abuse and misuse the system for gains.
It’s still pretty bad and senseless. We all know how antis, nazis and conservationists are: you given them an inch, they’ll try to bite your entire arm off, not to mention leaving an infection behind.
No and if you dont see the problem, get a fucking mirror.
sounds sane to me, and like something that should be done.
Coincidentally, my birthday is 1900, January 1st.
1970, Jan 1st is better for this situation
Et tu, California with Democratic majority in both chambers? Fucking disgraceful.
Well, we as a state voted to ban flavored tobacco products when like 10 kids were getting popcorn lung from black market THC oil carts.
And selling tobacco to minors here is highly illegal, as it should be. So I never understood why we banned flavored tobacco, when the kids were getting issues from black market THC carts, which they also shouldn’t have been sold/using.
Not even getting into how the law didn’t stop flavored alcohol, we can still buy bubblegum flavored vodka here.
So even in the 2nd most Democrat leaning state, we still push for the dumbest laws. This was a state wide vote, not something the Senate/Assembly voted on.
I can report here that my fellow cigarette smokers in Illinois are still happy to be puffing their cancer sticks because flavored nicotine vapes are worse, and cause popcorn lung, so I should just keep smoking cigs.
Dumbest laws are pushed because we have the dumbest peoples.
the popcorn lung shit is such old news that people who bring it up have no idea what they are talking about. it was related to a chemical called Diacetyl. The popcorn lung name was from a industrial incident where workers were making popcorn with diacetyl as the flavoring, and there was an accident and they inhaled diacetyl vapors. There was no study done to say the levels in e-liquid cause this “popcorn lung” but e-liquid companies were so scared it would ruin their business that most removed the flavoring from their recipes, and the ones that contained it, had a warning that it had diacetyl, all without the goverment stepping in. vaping gets so much flak from the shit big-tobacco has done in the past decade and its sad where it is now, where people buy disposables and its just a dead market then what it used to be. just to put things into context here in canada. a 60ml bottle of eliquid used to cost 20-30 CAD before the “sin tax”. now, it costs 55-60 CAD for the same bottle. want to bypass the tax and DIY? sorry, nicotine bases to mix only go up to 20mg/ml FOR THE WHOLE BOTTLE meaning that if you want to make your juice, the whole bottle of nicotine base you bought is used for ONE BOTTLE MIX and is subjet to the sin tax. before you could buy a 100mg/ml bottle of nicotine for 40 bucks and it would last your months while you had your flavorings, and PG/VG bases.
It was a pretty big problem, not just a few kids. That outrage killed the diluent and thickener market for squaline and mineral oils. I learned way more than I ever wanted about how people cut oil based products for looks and consumption. It ended up that basically the entire industry was using products that weren’t new but we’re now being used at the rate of millions of gallons. Honeycut was the big name that was being sold by the 55 gallon drum.
If you vaped during that time, you likely put mineral oil into yours lungs. Black and gray market it’s still a problem, and those cutting agents were making it to the retail market by the time it got better.
Flavored tobacco used to only target minorities so it was OK. There are documentaries about this showing how much more flavored tobacco was advertised in lower socio-economic areas.
Once children started vaping the CA govt stepped in.
If you oppose the ban I have to assume because you don’t know where to get menthol cigs anymore. I live in Oakland and can still find Newports. I quite smoking them over 25 years ago but know more than one place that sells them.
edit - this thread is about age verification. not sure why you think tobacco bans are remotely close.
you oppose the ban I have to assume because you don’t know where to get menthol cigs anymore. I live in Oakland and can still find Newports. I quite smoking them over 25 years ago but know more than one place that sells them.
I don’t smoke period so I don’t mind it. I found the reasoning banning it was stupid, because the boomer voting base didn’t understand the reason for the Prop being drawn up.
this thread is about age verification. not sure why you think tobacco bans are remotely close.
Talking about a dumb law being passed, so I talked about a dumb law being passed. I said that a state of Democrat voters and Democrat Assembly members doesn’t mean they always pass the best/logical bills. Better than if the state was ran by Republicans, but so is every state.
The Moral Majority, which championed efforts to get “Explicit Lyrics” labels on records, among oþer censorious legislation, was headed by þe wife of þe Democratic US VP.
Democrats have þeir own issues; þey’re just not as egregious as Republican troubles. We’re still a nation of Puritans and parents who refuse to be accountable for raising þeir own children.
This bill, beginning January 1, 2027, would require, among other things related to age verification with respect to software applications, an operating system provider, as defined, to provide an accessible interface at account setup that requires an account holder, as defined, to indicate the birth date, age, or both, of the user of that device for the purpose of providing a signal regarding the user’s age bracket to applications available in a covered application store and to provide a developer, as defined, who has requested a signal with respect to a particular user with a digital signal via a reasonably consistent real-time application programming interface regarding whether a user is in any of several age brackets, as prescribed. The bill would require a developer to request a signal with respect to a particular user from an operating system provider or a covered application store when the application is downloaded and launched.
I’m not sure how this is going to be enforceable. So, in essence:
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The OS should have an accessible API that returns the age bracket of the user, presumably for the purposes of eliminating a lack of compliance on apps using children’s data for advertising. That’s not necessarily a massive problem, though I don’t like the idea of age brackets, I’d prefer it if it’s just a “Adult” vs “Child” bracket.
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It doesn’t seem to be asking that the age be verified through some external provider, so simply stating the age of the user is enough.
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App developers are expected to always request that information on launch/installation, which is simply not going to work because how would you enforce it for software made before this law came into effect?
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The definition of “covered application store” is way too broad and covers basically anywhere you can download software, including things like public docker hubs or Github, so no that’s never going to work out. Apple and Google can maybe include the request for age brackets and provide that information by default as part of the SDK, but legacy software? Good luck getting WinRAR to request that information. You’ve essentially banned all software made before 2025.
So… The OS-level stuff isn’t a huge deal, but the requirements on app developers are way too strict and would be unworkable. If I were to re-write the bill, I’d make it so the age bracket must be available at the OS level, but not required by the app developer to actually use it. I would then add more strict requirements on sites to not use children’s data for advertising, with the reasoning being that they could have asked for the age bracket from the OS at any time, and the fact that they didn’t even bother means they actually wanted to use children’s data.
The bigger problem IMO is the implication that a device/OS must have a defined “account holder” that is associated with an actual person with an age. Nevermind that there isn’t any verification happening that could de-anonymize a user or be breached - as an administrator, am I responsible for ensuring users only use a specific account with the correct age identified? What about google or apple? Are devices meant for children to be locked down so that new users or accounts can’t be created to circumvent restrictions?
This law is too vague to have any meaningful impact on child safety, and the implications behind it make future erosion of privacy far more likely.
That’s not even accounting for server racks. Servers run operating systems too, and a server doesn’t really have a ‘user’ as such. Sure there’s the admin account, but there isn’t a definitive person you can tie that to.
So the “age verification” boils down to the same level of security as that pop-up on PornHub asking if I’m over 18? And Newsom wants to create a legal precedent that can open the way to mandated State-controlled malware on every electronic device in the State just for that?
I mean, he’s a politician. He’s very aware that people can and do lie all the time. Which means that the stated goal of this legislation is very obviously not its actual goal.
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This is probably the most dystopian child safety bill so far.
Most dystopian “child safety” bill. Let’s not legitimize the claim that these laws are made to protect children while having privacy-invading side effects - they are privacy-invading laws disguised as child protection, while failing to have any real impact on children’s online safety and wellbeing
I’m not sure anything this repressive is implemented anywhere in the world.
Edit: wait this is the other half of the thing everywhere else is doing that would make this nightmare shit.
The only thing that I can think of is how China regulates it’s online gaming.
What is China’s Age Verification System?
China’s Age Verification System or 游戏适龄提示 in Chinese, is a government-mandated infrastructure that restricts minors’ access to online games and digital platforms. In China, all users must undergo “Real Name Verification” (实名认证) before accessing gaming services, enabling platforms to enforce age-appropriate restrictions automatically.
The system is overseen by the National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA) and integrates with national databases to verify user identities in real-time.
https://appinchina.co/blog/the-complete-guide-to-chinas-age-verification-system/
The move to do this was largely in part thanks to complaints of parents in regards to their kids’ habits with gacha games. For anyone interested, what I posted was a small excerpt from the link, there’s a lot more info on it there.
Is it in the OS?seems like just games.
It is similar, not the same. Some other key differences to consider are that while the US one is at the OS level, it’s just asking you to provide an age that isn’t linked to your ID or anything. It’s just like when a website asks your age, you can absolutely lie about it. But now it’s being done on the OS account, not the website.
Whereas, yeah, it is just for games in China, but it is absolutely being run against the person’s ID in a national database. Some games even require facial recognition. So it’s on a whole other level of verification and tracking.
while the US one is at the OS level, it’s just asking you to provide an age that isn’t linked to your ID or anything.
It’s Age Verification, which will almost certainly mean either ID scanning or facial scanning via the device camera. Or alternatively card transaction verification - the OG method baked into all these laws is the one that pays MasterCard and VISA. ID and facial recognition are cheaper services because the business providing the scan service can make more money off the ID or face they scan.
“Almost certainly,” is just you assuring it is so. Nothing in the legislation itself demands that.
The us is also openly capitalist with no other pretentions or pressures, and currently in the grip of a fascist regime.
I mean, sure? But that’s rather broad and does not really pertain to the topic at hand which is potentially (or outright) privacy-breaking legislature enacted and enforced on technology in the name of protecting childeren.
Its the difference between fucking around with a gun in the hospital parking lot with your two EMT lovers who are trying to get you to stop, and fucking around with a gun in the deep arctic with two hardened killers who want you dead.
I apologize for this being posted about 2 weeks after the bill was signed, was going through my usual methods of checking news and new laws and found this.
Now terminals will read: “GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by applicable law, and contains code known by the State of California to cause cancer or other reproductive harm.” /j
i once compiled C code and now have finger cancer
Gavin is as slimey as his hair.
“Age verifications” AKA “A complete ID and access record of all that you do on your personal electronics.” This is some seriously dystopian surveillance and control shit and it has nothing at all to do with children.
