"The insistence on perfect age verification requires ending anonymity. Age verification to the level of buying cigarettes or booze does not.
Flash a driver's license at a liquor store to buy a single-use token, good for one year, and access your favorite social media trash. Anonymity is maintained, and most kids are locked out.
In the same way that kids occasionally obtain cigs or beer despite safeguards, sometimes they may get their hands on a code. Prosecute anyone who knowingly sells or gives one to a minor."
I've never had my ID recorded at any liquor store in my life. I've bought alcohol in multiple countries. If that happens where you live I'd fight to have that practice banned legally for alcohol and tobacco purchases. Stores are definitely selling it to insurance companies.
Also after I had a certain number of birthdays, clerks have stopped demanding my ID. So my purchases are pretty much anonymous.
The card should be issued by a private company, or ideally, multiple companies. And it should be a scratch-off card with a unique code, so that codes can't be tied to transactions.
This, but seriously. Maybe some age token company might also run a raffle or other promotion.
EDIT: Because age verification tokens will likely be a commodity, low-margin business with little differentiation. So I assume companies will do stuff to make their token more attractive than the competition.
In my state, they scan your ID and check it with the state's database. Store policy is usually to do it for everyone, even if they obviously are above the age of 21, and the state mandates ID checks for anyone suspected to be 27 or below.
Historically liquor store checks were purely visual. These days they are often digital, meaning claims about privacy might (or might not) be outdated. The general principle still applies though. The physical infrastructure already exists, the ID checks do not necessarily need to be digitized or recorded, and even if they are the issued tokens don't need to be tied to the check.
Grocery stores already sell age restricted items as well as gift cards that require activation. The state could issue "age check cards" that you could purchase for some nominal fee. That would require approximately zero additional infrastructure in most of the industrialized world. The efficacy would presumably be equivalent to that for alcohol and tobacco.
I don't trust that the information about my identity would not be recorded while selling me my "free speech token". So the chilling effect on free speech would be exactly the same.
That would largely depend on the implementation details I think. Both those of the ID check itself as well as the precise nature of the tokens.
Consider a somewhat extreme example. A preprinted paper ticket with nothing more than a serial number on it. The clerk only visually inspects the ID document then enters the serial number into a web portal and hands it to you. When you go to "redeem" it the service relays the number back to the government server rather than your local device doing so directly. That would be far more privacy preserving than the vast majority of present day clearnet activity.
> The clerk only visually inspects the ID document then enters the serial number into a web portal and hands it to you.
No absolutely not. There's no need for it. We don't require Internet connected beer cans to phone home to a government server and recheck your driver's license when you're cracking them open.
> When you go to "redeem" it the service relays the number back to the government server rather than your local device doing so directly
Your possession of the token when you enter it into your social media account is proof enough that you're of age. The social media website only needs to call the token issuer's API to verify its validity. And all the token issuer should know is it's a valid token sold to a buyer of legal age. Anything more is needlessly complicated and risks anonymity. No recording of IDs in any way, shape or form whatsoever.
And there's no need to involve the government or government servers in any of the implementation or technology. It can be an open, published standard. Any company that can get their cards in stores, and sold with age verification, should be able to participate. All participants can be periodically inspected by the government to ensure compliance with standards.
How would I know the Clerk wasn't instructed to record the name from my ID? Also this runs into the same problems as voter ID laws, not everyone has an ID that they can show at a liquor store.
In my proposal private companies would issue the "age check cards" for sale, not the state.
And I don't know how things work in other places, but I've never had my ID scanned when buying alcohol. These days clerks don't even ask me for ID because I obviously appear to be legal age.
In my proposal the token would be a scratch off card with a unique code. It can't be associated with the transaction.
"The insistence on perfect age verification requires ending anonymity. Age verification to the level of buying cigarettes or booze does not. Flash a driver's license at a liquor store to buy a single-use token, good for one year, and access your favorite social media trash. Anonymity is maintained, and most kids are locked out. In the same way that kids occasionally obtain cigs or beer despite safeguards, sometimes they may get their hands on a code. Prosecute anyone who knowingly sells or gives one to a minor."