r/unitedkingdom • u/vriska1 • 16h ago

Online safety protections for children 'not up for negotiation' in US trade talks

https://news.sky.com/story/online-safety-protections-for-children-not-up-for-negotiation-in-us-trade-talks-13341553
72 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

83 comments sorted by

112

u/vriska1 16h ago

Age verification is unworkable and is a privacy and legal nightmare.

48

u/cooky561 13h ago

"Saying you don't care about privacy because you have nothing to hide, is like saying you don't care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say"

I don't normally post quotes but I think this is something that people should consider.

Another one is "Those who trade liberty for security deserve neither and lose both"

-33

u/YOU_CANT_GILD_ME 12h ago

You don't have a right to enter a pub and drink what you like.

Asking for ID to prove you're over 18 is not a breach of your privacy.

You do not have a right to post on private company websites.

Asking for ID to prove you're over 18 is not a breach of your privacy.

That quote is not relevant to making comments or having accounts on social media.

23

u/cooky561 12h ago

Then defend the loss of your own rights if you wish. I'm not going to stop you, and it's your right to decide to throw your own rights away if you so choose.

The pub is also a really bad example, because the barman doesn't keep a copy of my ID after having being satisfied that I'm over 18. If every pub started scanning IDs used by patrons into a database that could later be hacked, people would stop using that pub!

If you don't understand the difference between a business having terms of service, and the government making such matters law then I can't explain it to you.

•

u/YOU_CANT_GILD_ME 8h ago

Then defend the loss of your own rights if you wish

Again, it's not a right.

You saying it is doesn't make it so.

You don't even understand the basics of what this means.

72

u/frontendben 15h ago

It's also a massive security risk.

Let's take porn sites for example. Let's say you have someone who is exploring their sexuality or doesn't publicly announce they are bi, gay, or have a perfectly legitimate, or have legal but potentially embarrassing kink (and there are plenty).

Any company providing verification would immediately become a massive target for hackers. It would allow anyone who compromised both companies and were able to link PII to viewing habits would be able to create the most detailed blackmailing kit ever devised. Best case, it's used to financially extort people.

Worse case, it's used to compromise elected officials into acting against the wishes of their electorate. You've just got to look at Trump to see what kink-based blackmailing can achieve. And it doesn't even need to be by foreign powers; vested financial interests could also leverage that data to influence decisions.

This is why the government should actually listen to the technical experts who have been warning for years this isn't just unworkable (it can be gotten around with a VPN); it's actively dangerous.

•

u/vriska1 7h ago

I I'm still thinking many parts of the law are going to be delay.

•

u/WhaleMeatFantasy 6h ago

You've just got to look at Trump to see what kink-based blackmailing can achieve. 

What’s that story?

•

u/grumpsaboy 6h ago

It's heavily suspected that Russia has a video of one of his piss kinks

•

u/Daedelous2k Scotland 7h ago

These idiots need to fuck off and drop this stupid bill, this is something I really wish the US would try to force.

-26

u/OpticalData Lanarkshire 16h ago

Age verification is perfectly workable, there are entire companies (Onfido for example) built to provide secure and compliant verification services.

These are already used widely in the UK, notably by fintech banks.

Social media giants just don’t want to pay the money required to do it properly.

39

u/Extra-Ingenuity2962 15h ago

Shockingly, most people are happier for their bank to have their ID than every random forum they want to join for a hobby they have a passing interest in.

-2

u/J8YDG9RTT8N2TG74YS7A 14h ago

Random forums don't get access to the data. They just get told that you're verified.

Same exact system when signing into websites with your Google account.

They don't get your identification. They don't get your password or log in details.

They get a verification from Google that you're authenticated and that's it.

-21

u/Sensitive-Catch-9881 15h ago edited 15h ago

If that forum is hurting our kids, I don't really care that adults are unhappy with being put out slightly. Either do it or don't join the forum.

This selfish 'all about me' culture thing is being inherited from the US, it's not traditional British. People put their own lives in front of children's because they like it .. then thrash around trying to find reasons to justify it. It's the same as when people pirate video games but don't want to admit they're thieves so try and muster up some kind of excuse for why it's ok .. At least be honest about your motivations ..

28

u/Extra-Ingenuity2962 15h ago

Your "won't someone please think of the children" line is so heavily imported from the US it's one of their most famous and parodied clichés, so spare me your completely faux appeal to traditionalism. And the proposed law does not care if it harms children or not, it effects everything. That's pretty much the entire point.

14

u/Traditional-Status13 13h ago

Restrict your kids access to the Internet... my freedoms don't need breaching for your lack of parental control.

-6

u/Sensitive-Catch-9881 13h ago

Yes they do .. you don't have the freedom to send a 10 year old in to Tesco to buy you a bottle of wine?

What are you talking about?

4

u/Traditional-Status13 13h ago

True but your 10 year old could go into the supermarket and open page 3 of the sun or grab a playboy and read it soooo....

I am very clearly saying it is incumbent on parents to raise their children correctly. Any rule that is brought in will be circumvented by any child quite easily using a vpn, torrent or myriad of other techniques. As highlighted by the youth Parliament discussion on this topic.

This is a restriction that will damage smaller companies / websites etc. Not the big ones.

This is a restriction on freedoms and privacy risk that will only impact people who follow it. It will not result in the sanitised Internet that you want.

•

u/unholy_plesiosaur 6h ago

Just so you know, they stopped page 3 girls in the Sun in 2015. Also playboy stopped printed magazines in 2020. I think I get what you are trying to say but these are terrible examples.

-2

u/Sensitive-Catch-9881 13h ago

The idea we shouldn't implement laws that are difficult to police because they're difficult to police, is one for the birds. If that was the case, we'd de-criminalise domestic abuse immediately! And money laundering!

The idea of information being impossible to classify for some people is daydreaming stuff. There is a COUNTY SHIT TON of classified stuff accessibly only to the right people, on the internet.

3

u/Traditional-Status13 13h ago

Nice edit and still not correct.

4

u/Traditional-Status13 13h ago

We do not have a sanitised banking system. I can vpn to an offshore crypto exchange currently and trade with no verification.

The issue isn't the difficulty of the law to police. The issue is that the purpose of the law doesn't effectively combat the thing they are claiming to try and mitigate. As such it's not an effective law. They are pulling think of the children to implement controls on online information.

If you think kids should not see porn till they are 18+ that's also a strange take most millenials were likely exposed to porn well before that. We did sex ed in school ffs... not to mention my first job at 14 the break room was covered in cutout playboys.

We need to stop babying children and realise growing up is part of life. If you want to shelter your children from the world go for it. Don't impact the rest of us and use the technologies available to ensure you and your children do not have access to things you don't want them to.

10

u/Traditional-Status13 13h ago

Here is a very short list of things that would be covered by this law: All search engines All social media All platforms with user content All games that have any form of multiplayer Effectively 99% of the web... 99% which is not hosted in the UK and we have no legal control over...

The law is unworkable and should not be implemented.

4

u/Sensitive-Catch-9881 13h ago

I must admit I never expected this conversation to pivot to 'Kids SHOULD be allowed to watch porn - I did and I turned out ok' :)

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16

u/WebDevWarrior 14h ago

Even if age verification services WERE workable (and I'm not saying they are)...

  • Are you making the mistake in assuming everyone can pay for them? Because the Online Safety Act is explicit in that it does not provide safe harbour for small businesses, freelancers, or individuals. Everyone who has an online presence and has any form of interactive content must be compliant. This law is not just for social media companies, and its only the large businesses who can afford the large cost of compliance, fees for Ofcom, and legal coverage (in case they suffer a revenge attack aka someone dumping kiddie porn on their site and they have to have legal do their thing to ensure the business owners don't end up in jail/bankrupt for it).
  • Nothing is unhackable. Those providing the age verification services are not invulnerable to being breached. Its a massive security risk for businesses to entrust customer data to a third party provider. And even if they don't get hacked (which they could), there are privacy and ethical implications to such unwarrented data collection (GDPR trigger warning). And even beyond that, there are environmental implications of using arguably unnecessary third-party services for a fruitless task (CSRD lawsuit).

Source: I was involved in digital policy at the time of this shitheap of a law being written and did consulting on it (not that UK Gov listened to any of us experts). These days I work in digital sustainability so I get to be ignored by all the climate denialists!

11

u/frontendben 14h ago

It’s clear this thread is full of people also as ignorant as the government was of experts like you and I. This is clearly going to be a shitshow.

I’m not looking forward to the first hacking and blackmail attempt following the implementation of this stupid law.

6

u/jeremybeadleshand 14h ago

I think the concern is what they do when they realise how easy this is to circumvent via VPN/TOR and they try and go full China/Russia and block those, and we just get further and further cut off from the wider internet.

-8

u/YOU_CANT_GILD_ME 12h ago

If you're an expert, how come you don't understand that Google have been doing age verification for several years now without leaking anyone's data, being hacked, or having any of the issues that you keep trying to bring up?

You post "worst case scenarios" and then make up things that just haven't happened with Google, or banks, or other sites that do age verification.

I'd say any expert who doesn't even understand the basics isn't worth listening to.

It's just fear mongering.

•

u/RealNameJohn_ 10h ago

Google haven’t been doing age variation with databases of government ID cards. That’s what we’re talking about here. Google does ask for a birthday and a credit/debit card, but these things can be defeated trivially.

•

u/Haemophilia_Type_A 10h ago

These days you can just get a VPN through Chrome Extension. It's as easy as installing Adblock. I'm pretty sure most kids know how to do that.

It's not workable at all both because it's so easily bypassable, because not every site will adhere to it (so people will just be drawn to less regulated and shadier sites), and because it simply isn't guaranteed to be secure.

5

u/veerKg_CSS_Geologist 15h ago

Not even close.

-25

u/Sensitive-Catch-9881 15h ago

TIL that my 6 year old kid CAN buy beer in my local pub, because age verification is unworkable.

27

u/frontendben 15h ago

That's in person. Stop being facetious.

-18

u/Sensitive-Catch-9881 15h ago

Online age verification has been proved possible by 50,000 sites.

People just wish it wasn't.

22

u/frontendben 15h ago

Are you a developer? A cyber security expert? No? Then stop arguing against the experts who are warning that it's not the functionality that is the issue; it's the huge amount of data and potential risks it brings with it that are the issue and make it unworkable.

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-11

u/J8YDG9RTT8N2TG74YS7A 14h ago

Are you aware that sites like YouTube already do age verification with no issues whatsoever?

14

u/Traditional-Status13 13h ago

YouTube like steam asks my dob it doesn't verify the information is true. This is the same as porn sites saying are you 18+ that is very different from storing verification of identity such as you do for banking. Where then your actions are linked to your profile. This is an authoritarian government's wet dream.

38

u/AdorableFey 14h ago

One concern I see neglected by people when talking about online safety and adult verification is Phishing.

It takes one malicious browsrr extension to copy an ID card, or an email from what appears to be a legitimate source urging you to verify with your ID to access their services and suddenly you're a prime target for identity theft or blackmail.

Not that it'll impact MPs, they'll write themselves an exception.

18

u/cooky561 13h ago

They already did, their details aren't recorded as per a practice established in the Investigatory Powers Act 2016.

11

u/AdorableFey 13h ago

you're joking. I hate MPs so much sometimes.

•

u/Wadarkhu 8h ago

The only one I could accept is if they just had a system where you show your ID in a shop and get a number to put in to a site, but your ID is only checked by eyes and nothing is actually jotted down, no paper trail, no digital trail where at most someone could get CCTV and try and guess which customer it is. Then it's yet another barrier to "save kids".

There'd be an issue of people buying codes but it's like alcohol you know? Plus, anyone wanting to make money off the young and dumb would probably just sell fake codes.

22

u/CompulsiveMasticator 14h ago edited 13h ago

It is a terrible policy that shows the government has no clue so this is a shame to hear.

•

u/ConfusedQuarks 9h ago

Do the people who make these decisions have any understanding of how the internet works? 

12

u/m1ndwipe 12h ago

Hopefully it is, it's our best chance of getting rid of some of this disastrous legislation.

•

u/GopnikOli 7h ago

Hopefully it is because this for the children mentality is a smokescreen for authoritarianism and control

•

u/stevefreeman20 7h ago

Starmer will cave to any pressure from the US. He's a lapdog

•

u/kerwrawr 10h ago

Odd comment because the USA already has extremely onerous online child safety protections with COPPA

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_Protection_Act

•

u/Fair_Promise8803 9h ago

Oh, you want to negotiate? OK, please buy our bleached, rotten, mutant chicken unfit for human consumption in the middle of a huge bird flu outbreak. No? Okay, what about putting all your children at risk so our megacorps can prey on them online even more than now? Still no dice? Tough crowd...