[noodlesUK]

I think that if we are considering technical solutions to the social problems here, the answer is well understood by professionals working in age/ID verification. You allow someone to perform a more thorough check verifying your age and identity (such as the government or your smartphone vendor), and then you use a privacy preserving protocol to provide a proof of whatever attribute (such as age) you are trying to verify in the absence of the remaining personal data. This can be as simple as exposing a "is age over {16, 18, 19, 21, 25}" api in the OS or browser, or as complex as a ZKP as needed. What doesn't work is requiring each service to independently perform verification which leads to a massive expansion in the proliferation of personal data and is incompatible with the modern approaches to data protection.

This is a solution that hopefully will cease to be relevant as soon as the remaining infrastructure is finished.

[wentw0rth]

> You allow someone to perform a more thorough check verifying your age and identity (such as the government or your smartphone vendor)...

Some people may be okay with that, others may want to browse the web in privacy.

> What doesn't work is requiring each service to independently perform verification which leads to a massive expansion in the proliferation of personal data.

And that's the AGEWARDEN difference, we keep no data, literally. I don't even know who's visited the site. Send your AI to the FAQ page for analysis: https://agewarden.ai/faq, I want to make sure we clear your bar.

[pandoro]

Even more so considering that most, if not all countries already have age-verification infrastructure in-place for selling alcohol and tobacco (and other goods). Why not piggy-back on this? Go to a kiosk/shop selling controlled goods, pay a small fee to the vendor to get a one-use verification code that attests your age.

[wentw0rth]

Love it. We've been playing around with other ideas that are not web related. As the tech improves, less data will be needed to infer age. Strange now, but setting up a microphone at a kiosk or providing a widget-less API for broader use-cases, is not a stretch for piggy-backing. Thank you for the comment.

[thecatapps]

While you're 100% correct, I'm not holding my breath on that remaining infrastructure being available anytime soon.

I was expecting, at the very least, to see Apple make their App Store 18+ checks available to developers at WWDC this year. Yet, there's still nothing except the self-reported (useless) "Declared Age Range." Apple has the best integration story of all of them, and could bring it to their entire ecosystem (native iOS apps, mobile Safari, all of MacOS), yet they haven't. Why?

Also, nothing comes to mind regarding browsers, android devices, or non-mobile devices. As far as I'm aware, no one seems to be in a rush to make this available. With non-Apple hardware, I can see it being trickier, but still, I haven't seen many (any) attempts. Why?

It probably doesn't help that many don't see the difference between "deep-state surveillance digital ID verification" and privacy-preserving ZKPs to verify age.

[wentw0rth]

> the difference between "deep-state surveillance digital ID verification" and privacy-preserving ZKPs to verify age

Agreed.

> Also, nothing comes to mind regarding browsers, android devices, or non-mobile devices. As far as I'm aware, no one seems to be in a rush to make this available.

Exactly, it doesn't benefit companies to NOT know as much about you as possible. Reminded me of this: https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rshc1f/i_traced_2_b...