[debazel]

> We have privacy laws and safeguards on all those things

Which have failed horrendously.

If you really just wanted to protect kids then make kid safe devices that automatically identify themselves as such when accessing websites/apps/etc, and then make them required for anyone underage.

Tying your whole digital identity and access into a single government controlled entity is just way too juicy of a target to not get abused.

[fc417fc802]

I was recently surprised to learn that the mainstream adult websites actively send a header identifying themselves as such and have been doing so for something like the past 20 years. The services that we would reasonably want to impose age checks on are already actively facilitating their own filtering.

[clwg]

> Which have failed horrendously.

I'm Canadian, so I can't speak for other countries, but I have worked on the security of some of our centralized health networks and with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. I'm not aware of anything that could be considered a horrendous failure of these systems or institutions. A digital ID could actually make them more secure.

I also think giving kids devices that identifies them automatically as children is dangerous.

[int_19h]

If you're Canadian, then you don't have much in terms of legal safeguards to begin with, given the notwithstanding clause of your constitution.

[clwg]

This argument mischaracterizes the notwithstanding clause. Invoking s.33 is highly visible and carries political consequences. It shields a law only from being struck down on certain Charter grounds and must still comply with all other federal and provincial legislation (like PIPEDA).

It’s not perfect, but it does provide some flexibility to accommodate provincial differences. And the concerns people raise about the notwithstanding clause can just as easily occur in countries without it. Personally, I’d be much more concerned if we had FISA courts.

[int_19h]

The point is that your legislatures can override most of your Charter if they feel like it. Now sure, they have to explicitly say that they're doing that, which is a slight improvement on the state of affairs in, say, UK. But if you ever get someone like Trump in Canada (and if that sounds far-fetched to you, well, it sounded far-fetched to most Americans 10 years ago...), he'd be able to move so much faster.