California and Colorado Age Verification Laws

How is Hubitat going to handle age verification mandates that are being put on "programable" devices backed by a operating system? A major Open Source Calculator project just put this out there:

image

The other choice is for them to just not sell the OSs in either of those states. The cost to implement this for two states would probably exceed the losses of just no longer selling the OS in those states.

Though it will primarily hurt the manufacturers of the devices that come with the OS. They will only be able sell machines with no OS on them, if all OS suppliers decide to just not sell there anymore.

They also don't seem to have thought about Industrial Equipment that is usually based on Windows or Linux. So a factory can't buy a piece of equipment from a vendor, if the OS it runs on is not allowed to be sold in the state because they won't add a feature?

These are some seriously clueless lawmakers pushing these laws.

3 Likes

Seems that way. Haven’t they already bungled this in the UK?

3 Likes

Yes the UK is a mess right now with age verification and the use of VPN's to bypass.

1 Like

I suppose it depends on how you look at it.
Personally I don't think it's OK for kids to have easy access to porn and various other videos that degrade people and give a false narrative on life and relationships.
Yes, VPN's are a bypass to age verification and kids are way smarter than me and will get round it if they wish too but doing a completely innocent google search and getting the possibility of being presented with totally inappropriate material is unacceptable.
Better to try something than nothing I suppose. :man_shrugging:

1 Like

Absolutely. Porn is horrible for kids who don’t understand the meaning of sex, consent, all that stuff.

But from the limited amount I’ve read, the govt tried to solve this problem by putting a credit card verification requirement in place (even if other age verification methods presumably exist)?

Has that not caused issues for adults that want to use the internet for whatever depraved but legal porn they enjoy, but don’t have a credit card? They’re presumably resorting to VPNs more than kids are.

I disagree. placing the responsibility on services or OS providers that don't have legal authority to obtain actual verification nor should they have access to view and/or store my government issued ID's is something that gives a false sense of security. This in my opinion is WORSE than doing nothing as it gives those who should be taking responsibility a sense that they don't have to live up to their responsibilities.

The something is better than nothing approach is actually almost always wrong, especially if done as a knee jerk reaction and without actual thought.

But, that is just my opinion.

As it stands now, the "workaround" (in these two states) to being old enough is just to say you are old enough from all of the articles I read. Again, false sense of security and lipstick on a pig.

4 Likes

I honestly don't care about age verification (I noticed this morning my I phone is asking for age verification just just about all apps). The bigger issue is the security issue, What are they doing with the data after the need for it is resolved. Any entity SHOULD just delete the data. But there are plenty of instances of apps that required users to submit things like photos or state issued ID cards then were hacked and all their users PII was sold on the dark web. In short the issue is what are to they doing about data storage and security after the need concludes? For example, I don't trust Discord to do the right thing. Their age verification will be a huge security risk.

1 Like

100% this.... especially since they (Discord) had this specific issue already. My family uses discord exclusively for voice chat while gaming remotely (kids at their houses, us at ours). It's a cool way to get voice time with the kids (and grandkids). So, we won't be doing their age verification and are fine with just the "under 18" content anyhow.

Regardless, I don't trust Google, Microsoft, or any of the other players any more than I do Discord with my PII. Their whole business model is collecting user data. Do I trust them to do the right thing and keep my actual identity separate from all of that??? (100% rhetorical.... I do not)

As a civil servant whose PII was also hacked and shared, no entity is "safe" when it comes to storing your data. So, I am not into sharing government ID's with anyone that is not the government, and more so not into sharing it with those who actively profit off of the data that they collect.

2 Likes