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by nesk_ 468 days ago
What's insane is that, in France, we have France Connect, which is exactly what you describe: a third-party authentication platform maintained by the government.

Lately, a new law just passed to force porn websites to check the age of visitors. I would have been fine with an authentication going through France Connect:

- the gov knows which website you went to, just like your DNS provider would, but it doesn't which content - and the website knows which content you've watched but not who's watching.

Best of both worlds!

But no, we have to send a copy of our ID card to the website, which is INSANE because the website knows WHO you are and WHAT you're watching.

2 comments

We need this in the US. Otherwise, once laws like this https://apnews.com/article/utah-app-store-age-verification-7... go into effect, 3rd party app stores, like apkmirror.com, etc. are going to need to pull out of the US unless there's a service like that in the country. It's starting with Utah, but many states and even the feds are planning similar laws.
What knock on effects do you see here, for state-led legislation about online privacy? Do we see privacy-conscious vs restrictive US states, and do folks in the (let’s say it, blue) states host US-centric Mullvads? Like out of state abortions.

Going further, how might this effect folks having “freedom is more important than safety” beliefs, given they reside in areas more likely to deny civil liberties-ish rights in the name of family values-ish rights, when this starts to really hit them where it hurts? Everything they do or say online becomes traceable to them, for a notoriously vocal-on-social media set.

It's mind boggling that governments don't offer that service for a lump sum per month