[gambiting]

Government builds a website where you can log in using any government issued ID or using one of the many many many available services that hold your details already(at least in the UK nearly everyone will have a DLVA account, HMRC account, HMPO account, NHS account.....all of these are government services which we can only assume hold our data securely already).

On that website, you can click "give me a verification code", it gives you a code that is single use and only valid 24 hours. You type that into whatever 18+ website you need to, they use a public API provided by the government to just check "yes this is a valid code and the user is 18" - bang, done, verified. The website knows nothing about you at all, except for the fact that you're 18.

In fact, the UK government ALREADY HAS THIS. For the EU settlement scheme, you can give your employeer(or anyone else who needs it) a special magic code that they type in on the government website, and it just says "yet his person has the right to reside in the UK" without spilling any of your personal information at all. The code is single use and valid a limited amount of time. And you can do the same with your driving licence, where anyone can verify you hold a valid licence without actually seeing it or any details on it.

Like, am I being stupid here? It seems like an almost trivial solution to the problem, especially given that it already exists for at least 2 services named above.

And yes, I know people will say "oh but that requires the government having this data on you, and that's bad" or "but then the government will know you've authenticated with pornhub!".

And yes, both of these are true - but on point 1 - like, I'd love some ideal situation where the government can simultaniously give me a passport or a driving licence AND not have any information about me at the same time, but that ain't happening, and on point 2 - yes, but that's still infinitely preferable to the current implementation, and it can be easily solved with legislation saying that the code authentication service doesn't log who requested verification, it just answers with yes/no and that's it.

[OkayPhysicist]

This means giving the government complete insight into your internet browsing. All they need to do is store a database table of handed out keys to ids.

This is unacceptable tyranny on its face.

[Retr0id]

Every time I search something, I open a fresh private tab and google it. If I want to turn safe-search off, I'd have to go through this code verification flow for every single search. Aside from just being annoying, they'd have to implement strict rate limiting to prevent automated code sharing, so I'd soon end up waiting for a rate limit to expire before I can search anything.

And "the government will know you've authenticated with pornhub" is extremely harmful, in my opinion.

[intended]

Sadly we got to this place because there are other harms that are occurring and those are forcing this conversation.

[OkayPhysicist]

The "other harms" are made up fearmongering by rightwing cowards and incompetent parents.

[intended]

[delayed]

[Jabrov]

The codes can trivially be shared in this case

[gambiting]

...and? Just like a child can "trivially" ask an adult to buy them a beer.

Who are these adults giving children their verification codes for adult websites?

[Retr0id]

Asking adults for beer doesn't scale, code sharing can. If you want to crack down on code sharing, you'd have to start surveilling who is signing up to what.