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The votes are strong majorities of both houses - great to see a functional democratic government act on such an important issue. They specifically don’t prescr

The votes are strong majorities of both houses - great to see a functional democratic government act on such an important issue. They specifically don’t prescribe any particular age verification methods. This would be a great time to follow up with legislation that updates their national IDs to be able to provide cryptographically secure proofs of age without leaking identity. Absent that, I’m sure many of the comments to come will worry about the privacy implications. It really would be great to see the government act with expertise to solve the problem in a way compatible with a free and open society.

ENGNR 2y ago
We’re a nanny state, the government is just going to use it to track us
- Pedro_Ribeiro 2y ago
  Aren't videogames where you consume drugs for gameplay boosts banned there? I always found that weird for a first world country.
  - ponco 2y ago
    For a time, we did not have an “R” rating for video games and this sort of content called for this rating, which legislation said could not be given. Fortunately saner heads prevailed and they created an “R” rating for video games and this oddity went away.
- threeseed 2y ago
  ASIO has been able to track you for decades since they have real-time metadata feeds from Telstra, Optus, NBN etc. They have access to your location estimate, URLs of sites you've visited, people you talk via email/phone etc. And we know that this dataset is shared to the Five Eyes. So if you are concerned about being tracked I would strongly recommend leaving Australia.
  - ENGNR 2y ago
    And now they’ll be able to see the groups you go to within pages, read comments, see what we write, etc etc. It also goes from being a defence capability to used for all sorts of things and eventually leaked. It’s not bad enough to leave, better to engage with the politics and try to get some rights before it spreads further outwards
    - RichEO 2y ago
      This is conspiracy theory thinking, why on earth would age verification give them access to all of this additional information?
      - 71bw 2y ago
        In what way do you think they'll be able to verify your age reliably without you having to, yourself, "willingly", hand over your PII?
  - null0pointer 2y ago
    It’s more about who has access to the data and how easily. Plus the potential of creating a massive target for hackers.
- Der_Einzige 2y ago
  Forced voting is proof of it. Australia is by far the least free Anglo nation. I will never step foot on that god forsaken island. They have no culture, and that’s the opinion of Australians: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lucky_Country https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lucky_Country https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Australian_Ugliness https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Australian_Ugliness
  - threeseed 2y ago
    Australia is one of the freest countries in the world: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/freest-countries https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/freest-co... Higher than UK and the US.
    - wqaatwt 2y ago
      > Higher than UK Not according to https://rsf.org/en/index https://rsf.org/en/index or https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Freedom_Index https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Freedom_Index I assume that other indices that show “data” that fits whatever narrative one wants are easy to find… Which makes things like this meaningless in isolation.
    - throwawaythekey 2y ago
      In day to day life we are fairly free but for example we have much weaker freedom of speech/opinion than the USA. For example if you raise your arm at a particular angle you can now be sent to jail [1]. We also had some of the longest/harshet COVID lockdowns in the world in my state. [1] - https://www.dw.com/en/australia-man-convicted-for-performing-outlawed-nazi-salute/a-70437601 https://www.dw.com/en/australia-man-convicted-for-performing...
      - threeseed 2y ago
        > if you raise your arm at a particular angle you can now be sent to jail Also known as doing a Nazi salute.
  - 2y ago
- pimeys 2y ago
  Nanny state is a term coined by tobacco industry in their lobbying against tobacco laws. Is it really a term you want to use here? https://www.tobaccotactics.org/article/countering-industry-arguments-against-plain-packaging-the-nanny-state-is-going-too-far/ https://www.tobaccotactics.org/article/countering-industry-a...
  - ruthmarx 2y ago
    > Nanny state is a term coined by tobacco industry in their lobbying against tobacco laws. Is it really a term you want to use here? Sure, because most people h ave no idea where the term originates from and it now has a life of its own. It's the standard term for this sort of thing.
  - tirant 2y ago
    Why not? It is about treating people as adults or children.
  - bigstrat2003 2y ago
    Who cares? Whether or not it applies in this particular case, it's a useful term. Rejecting ideas because of who they come from is the very antithesis of intellectual maturity.
  - refurb 2y ago
    Just because an "evil" group used, or even coined, a term doesn't mean it's not a useful term.
llm_trw 2y ago
[flagged]
- infradig 2y ago
  Australia was founded in 1901 as a federation of free states.
  - llm_trw 2y ago
    More than half of which were penal colonies.
isaacremuant 2y ago
Or, you know, don't keep going into this path of authoritarianism. Your comment is absolutely disingenuous pretending that this Draconian move can be implemented with open society or transparency. This is the same nation that went absolutely bonkers with their COVID policies and their inhumane treatment of anyone who desired freedom or bodily autonomy.
kaladin-jasnah 2y ago
It's going to be interesting to see how one can use cryptography to do this privately. I wonder if the cost and complexity of such a thing would result in big companies simply requiring some kind of "take a picture of your ID" style verification. Estonia's ID card https://www.id.ee/en/ https://www.id.ee/en/ could certainly be a model; still not sure how to do age verification. My best guess would be some sort of cryptographic signing that refuses to sign if you are below a certain age.
russelg 2y ago
People are far more worried about the government knowing that you're using a social media site, than they are about the social media site knowing who you are. I don't see a way this could be implemented where the govt doesn't know what site is requesting the verification. I'm assuming it'll be an openid type flow where the social media sites will have to register client IDs with the govt myID, in which case the govt will directly be able to tie a person to what social media they use. It won't tell them what account it links to on the social media side, but depending on what data is returned, they can easily just ask the social media company for this info later on.
- greggsy 2y ago
  The proposed digital ID solution is designed to protect the individual from this type of information disclosure.
- tzs 2y ago
  > I don't see a way this could be implemented where the govt doesn't know what site is requesting the verification Blind signatures. Briefly, a blind signature is a way for a party to sign a document without seeing the contents of the document. The cryptographic forms of this, at a high level, work like this: 1. You do a keyed reversible transformation on document D that produces a transformed document D'. This is called "blinding" the document. 2. They sign D' with signature S'. 3. You apply the reverse transformation to S', which gives you a signature S from them for D. This is "unblinding". Use a random key each time you need to get something blind signed and throw away the key afterwards. Even if they later see D and S they can't match them up with any D' and S' because they don't know the key. For age verification D would be some kind of token you obtain from the social media company during age verification. You'd then have the government blind sign that with a signature that is only used when the government has verified you are at least 16. You'd unblind the signature and give that back to the social media company. There are also protocols to do this using zero knowledge proofs.
- hcfman 2y ago
  I suspect that it is technically possible to make an anonymous identification service because the result to the social media site just had to be yes or no. In the Netherlands you have a government identification service that identifies people to other government sites. And a bank service that uses the banks identification service also roll to identify to other sites. Technically it would be possible to delete any trace afterwards. However. I have never ever in my life seen any government choose not to take advantage of an opportunity to exert more control over their citizens if the possibility exists. Plus rather than force it on everyone it should be a choice of the parents. Clearly not doing this is better but in the absence of that parents deciding is better for the others.
matt_trentini 2y ago
You're far more optimistic than I about our government being able to implement a secure, reasonable solution for age verification. COVIDSafe was the last technical undertaking and it was expensive and a completely inept implementation. The MyGov website is another failed attempt at keeping personal data secure. Further, it seems likely that social media companies are likely to come out of this with even more information about us. Government and tech do not mix well (at least in Australia).
Terr_ 2y ago
> national IDs to be able to provide cryptographically secure proofs of age Nah, this is an antipattern we've seen before. A veritable Pandora's Box whispering to be opened. There is a much simpler and safer solution: 1. A disclosure law, which requires sites to somehow (e.g. HTTP headers) show their nature as a social media site, porn site, etc. 2. Parents can choose to purchase devices/software for their children with a parental-lock, set those filters and permissions to match their own locality or personal preferences, and whitelist any necessary exceptions. This way the implementation costs of the shifting, complex, never-ending demands will fall onto the groups that actually want to use it, instead of all sites in the world being potential legal jeopardy for failing to implement all the censorship rules of every possible visitor. It also means that most enforcement (and exceptions) move out into a physical realm which parents are at least able to see and control. > without leaking identity Leaking identity to the site is only half the problem, the other is leaking activity to the government. I'd ratehr not have a Government Internet Decency Office with an easy list of every single site I ever tried to view or register-for, without any kind of warrant or other due-process.
- kumarvvr 2y ago
  The problem with this approach is that you will have two groups of children, the ones who have access and the ones who don't have access. This is a worse problem than allowing it for all. Its another vector of temptation, distraction, in-equality, etc.
  - hcfman 2y ago
    But not a worse problem than blocking it for everyone
  - oblio 2y ago
    I'd say the next steps is that you also force institutions for kids to ban it, regardless of parent choice. Parents must present proof of disabling said websites for their children. Or their kids can just not have those devices with them. Do this for schools, activity clubs, restaurants, fast for food places, etc, and you've basically hit 80% of places where kids are all the time.
lmm 2y ago
This is the opposite of democracy - a group imposing rules "for their own good" on people it doesn't represent who have no recourse. If they had any integrity they'd be banning it for adults not children.
- gonzo41 2y ago
  We do have recourse. What you'll see is more independent candidates get voted in to overturn the law. Once the government of the day starts badly implementing it the conservatives who voted with the center left party will split off and start attacking for it's repeal. It's a nothing burger law designed to look tough and do nothing.
  - larrysalibra 2y ago
    under 16 year olds cannot vote, are not represented and have no recourse. when one group votes to make rules for another group that cannot vote, it can be called many things, but "democracy" is not one of them.
    - bluefirebrand 2y ago
      When adults make decisions for children it's called "parenting" Acting like we should be seriously treating children and teens as an equal political group is a joke
      - amatecha 2y ago
        Hey, didn't you get the memo that teenagers know everything, have the simple & straightforward solutions to all of life's problems, and are never wrong?? ;)
      - pizza 2y ago
        I'm not sure what's worse: giving parental responsibility to politicians or equating craven paternalism to benevolent parenting.
      - 2y ago
est 2y ago
you must be joking, that's exactly how communist government works. Given strict laws but "don’t prescribe any particular ... methods" so one day law enforcements can extort a large sum of fine from companies as needed. The only difference is Commie leaders invent bullshit "laws" by themselves and no voting.
mianos 2y ago
I highly doubt they have the expertise to implement anything remotely 'cryptographic.' Their level of competence seems stuck in the 1950s, stamping paper forms, while anything more complex is handed off to consultants in Australia. These consultants appear far more interested in lining their pockets than in understanding technology or math. The far more likely scenario is they piss a couple of hundred billion away on the first company that shows up with a slick-sounding, half-baked platform, claiming it can magically solve all their problems with just a few "minor" tweaks. I'm an interested party, I have a 13 year old daughter who would benefit from a little less time on social media. But that's my problem, and my belief that these idiots in our government could help me with that is zero percent. I am probably in the .1% of households where dads know more than kids. (If photometric id comes in, I want to be in the fake moustache business).
- turbojet1321 2y ago
  There is myID (formerly myGovID) which would be the logical vehicle for a government provided age verification service. I've heard (but can't find a source) that it's build on OIDC/OAuth, so extending it to be an IdP exposing only specific claims (ie, age) shouldn't be a huge leap.
  - linuxandrew 2y ago
    myID as it stands is a bit of a farce. It uses OIDC under the hood, but it only supports end users that download the myID app on their smartphone via the Google Play Store or Apple App Store. Security is effectively outsourced to Google and Apple as the user's identity is "pinned" to their smartphone. Take myGov in contrast which is web-capable and supports users to use a Yubikey or Passkey/Webauthn-capable device to authenticate. Under the Australian Digital ID scheme myGov will likely be usurped by myID, which is, in my view, an inferior scheme which blatantly ignores basic standards.
- mianos 2y ago
  I was too right, they already selected a slick sounding half baked platform: https://accscheme.com/ https://accscheme.com/
gloosx 2y ago
>the government act with expertise to solve the problem Do you have an idea which problem did they solve? Did banning certain psychoactive drugs solved the problem of drug abuse? Maybe banning alcohol removed it from the streets during great depression? Banning gambling? Kids will find a way to get into their social media accounts anyway, and then these democrats will tell you they need to ban every VPN service and set-up Deep Packet Inspection devices for every ISP, make their own govt CA, and trust me all of it will be done in the name of people and child safety. Sad to see a dysfunctional govt. which bans and calls it a solution to the problem. When I will be in the office I would ban the whole concept of banning itself once and forever, and any politician who proposed a single ban in his life would be banned from service. I will of course step out for proposing this ban immediately.
- oblio 2y ago
  Banning smoking in many places plus banning advertising it plus banning selling it to kids reduced smoking by unfathomable amounts.
  - gloosx 2y ago
    Do you have data do back it up? From quickly looking at historical records online, I can't see any unfathomable amounts reduction, It's levelled on 20-30% of smokers among kids, and it remains a core challenge for child and adolescent health to the current day (according to 2020 WHO report[0]), plus they started to smoke vapes. So did the bans you sampled really work, or do they just smoke more discreetly and use tricks to buy cigarettes now, making the whole thing more inaccessible and desirable for an average child? [0] https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/05-06-2020-smoking-still-a-core-challenge-for-child-and-adolescent-health-reveals-who-report https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/05-06-2020-smoking-stil...
    - Timwi 2y ago
      I might be wrong but I read the OP’s comment as sarcastic.
linuxandrew 2y ago
> They specifically don’t prescribe any particular age verification methods. This would be a great time to follow up with legislation that updates their national IDs to be able to provide cryptographically secure proofs of age without leaking identity. Hard disagree. We do not need an internet driver's license. Australians are supposed to have a right to interact with organisations with privacy protections under the Privacy Act 1988, like APP2 which allows individuals to deal with organisations anonymously or pseudonymously. Social media companies are doing a great deal of harm to society, but banning under-16s is tackling the symptom, not the problem. All people should have more rights and protections, like opting out (or better, opting in) to infinite scroll and algorithmic content suggestions as opposed to subscribed content. Algorithmic content today is akin to spam in the early 2000s which governments regulated and has had some impact on bad behaviour by local companies (of course I am not under any pretense that spam will ever really be solved). Social media users should be able to opt in or out of content categories which AI could potentially help with that categorisation, ideally in an uber-transparent way. I'm young enough that "modern" social media was just starting up when I was a teenager. It's not clear that banning under 16s from modern digital communication would provide any benefits (which, by the way, social media is very loosely defined under the amendment). > Absent that, I’m sure many of the comments to come will worry about the privacy implications. The big issue is that we are importing the UK model which will see identity outsourcing to companies like Yoti and AU10TIX, the latter which was hacked in 2021 and led to some pretty serious implications for affected users. Of course the reality is that Meta is already doing age and identity verification on users who use privacy-protecting technologies like Firefox Container Tabs, at least in Australia, and has been for a number of years. This usually leads to an account being blocked until the user provides their ID via a photo. This will become formalised so that accounts that are detected as possibly being U16 (via various techniques like profiling and data matching against external sources) will be requested ID, and Yoti will likely be used to actually perform that verification. Another big concern will be that this is forced onto smaller operators like Australian Mastodon sites, internet forums, mailing lists and others.
- liammclennan 2y ago
  Did you see the "without leaking identity" part? Your comment seems to ignore that.
vermilingua 2y ago
> great to see the government act with expertise I’ve seen the Australian government accused of many things, but that’s certainly a first. This is the same country whose prime minister once said “The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia”.
- globalnode 2y ago
  That was back in 2017 when the govts were all up in arms over encryption. Apparently they don't mind it too much now, which means it all must be back door'able for them.
  - vermilingua 2y ago
    Has been backdoor(ed|able) for FVEY (via Australia) since 2018. https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about-us/our-portfolios/national-security/lawful-access-telecommunications/data-encryption https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about-us/our-portfolios/natio...
    - globalnode 2y ago
      5y in jail if you refuse to give a password and power to covertly access devices and conceal that fact if they desire. Yikes, they don't mess around.
      - Der_Einzige 2y ago
        By far the most bootlicking country in the Anglo world. Disgusting, and their political system should be shattered into the wind
        ruthmarx 2y ago
        The problem is Australians are fine with it. They might be the population with the most people saying "if you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to worry about" in the world, by a large margin.
lobochrome 2y ago
Dear god, no. This doesn't need more technology. The whole purpose of this is only to give parents a reason to say no. Often, a single kid in a class with an unrestricted iPhone is enough to poison the well. Now it's much, much simpler. Kids understand when you say it's against the law.
- 71bw 2y ago
  >Kids understand when you say it's against the law. Jesus, were you born 40? I don't know a single person who didn't willingly pirate media, games and break other laws (usual suspects like trespassing, underage + public drinking...) as kids and teens. They will not care about the law if they want to do something it limits.
  - lobochrome 2y ago
    I’m not called Jesus and I age normally. Do you have children?
    - bongodongobob 2y ago
      Just stop. You're being incredibly naive.
chris_wot 2y ago
lol - hardly! Submissions were announced on the 22nd, this closed on the 23rd, the Committee was so blindsided they literally requested submissions should 1-2 pages long, the bill was introduced to the House on the 26th and passed on the 29th. That’s some really well reviewed legislation. Parliament sitting days close on the 31st.
magnetowasright 2y ago
> functional democratic government Wait, where? Not in my Australia. Saying our govt has any competency is also gobsmacking. Yep, it's better here than other places (for certain groups) but when the notorious hate rag daily mail condemns (literal) neo-nazis marching and saluting in support of transphobe Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull you've really got to question what kind of functional democratic government or expertise leads and legislates this country. Literally the daily mail thinks our neo-nazi problem is a bit much. I genuinely can't wrap my head around that. The daily effing mail. That's the state of this country; what a healthy democracy that literal neo-nazi groups are free to demonstrate against human rights while the police force people doing nothing more for human rights than holding the pathetic signs back from the streets so the frog marching idiots can continue unimpeded. Utterly disgraceful state of affairs. It's so embarrassing. This legislation isn't going to stop kids accessing social media or prevent any of the related social harms, unfortunately. It's just going to give licence to erode privacy even further. All our pollies are so dangerously incompetent, especially when it comes to anything relating to computers, it's just enraging. It's a disgrace. Our governments don't give a single shit about human rights or the welfare of the people in our country. This law is no different, but it sure is a great distraction. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11879737/Neo-Nazis-throw-Hitler-salutes-trans-protest-outside-Parliament-House-Melbourne-Victoria.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11879737/Neo-Nazis-...
- throwawaythekey 2y ago
  Call me oldschool but to me a functioning democracy is where anyone can express their opinions. Neo nazis, zionists, anti zionists, jews, palestinians, socialists, globalists, communists, libertarians etc.
  - magnetowasright 2y ago
    Yes, a functional democracy means neonazis advocating for genociding are protected from the vicious sign holders by the police. Yes, that is definitely a functional democracy. The state defending neonazis from people holding signs is absolutely the free marketplace of ideas in action. Genocide is acceptable if enough people vote for it. Wow, what a great idea! I one day hope to be so privileged to actually think like that. Give me half a billion dollars and a lobotomy and that's as close as I'll get; I'm not sure it'll be enough.

ENGNR 2y ago

We’re a nanny state, the government is just going to use it to track us

Pedro_Ribeiro 2y ago
Aren't videogames where you consume drugs for gameplay boosts banned there? I always found that weird for a first world country.
- ponco 2y ago
  For a time, we did not have an “R” rating for video games and this sort of content called for this rating, which legislation said could not be given. Fortunately saner heads prevailed and they created an “R” rating for video games and this oddity went away.
threeseed 2y ago
ASIO has been able to track you for decades since they have real-time metadata feeds from Telstra, Optus, NBN etc. They have access to your location estimate, URLs of sites you've visited, people you talk via email/phone etc. And we know that this dataset is shared to the Five Eyes. So if you are concerned about being tracked I would strongly recommend leaving Australia.
- ENGNR 2y ago
  And now they’ll be able to see the groups you go to within pages, read comments, see what we write, etc etc. It also goes from being a defence capability to used for all sorts of things and eventually leaked. It’s not bad enough to leave, better to engage with the politics and try to get some rights before it spreads further outwards
  - RichEO 2y ago
    This is conspiracy theory thinking, why on earth would age verification give them access to all of this additional information?
    - 71bw 2y ago
      In what way do you think they'll be able to verify your age reliably without you having to, yourself, "willingly", hand over your PII?
- null0pointer 2y ago
  It’s more about who has access to the data and how easily. Plus the potential of creating a massive target for hackers.
Der_Einzige 2y ago
Forced voting is proof of it. Australia is by far the least free Anglo nation. I will never step foot on that god forsaken island. They have no culture, and that’s the opinion of Australians: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lucky_Country https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lucky_Country https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Australian_Ugliness https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Australian_Ugliness
- threeseed 2y ago
  Australia is one of the freest countries in the world: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/freest-countries https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/freest-co... Higher than UK and the US.
  - wqaatwt 2y ago
    > Higher than UK Not according to https://rsf.org/en/index https://rsf.org/en/index or https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Freedom_Index https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Freedom_Index I assume that other indices that show “data” that fits whatever narrative one wants are easy to find… Which makes things like this meaningless in isolation.
  - throwawaythekey 2y ago
    In day to day life we are fairly free but for example we have much weaker freedom of speech/opinion than the USA. For example if you raise your arm at a particular angle you can now be sent to jail [1]. We also had some of the longest/harshet COVID lockdowns in the world in my state. [1] - https://www.dw.com/en/australia-man-convicted-for-performing-outlawed-nazi-salute/a-70437601 https://www.dw.com/en/australia-man-convicted-for-performing...
    - threeseed 2y ago
      > if you raise your arm at a particular angle you can now be sent to jail Also known as doing a Nazi salute.
- 2y ago
pimeys 2y ago
Nanny state is a term coined by tobacco industry in their lobbying against tobacco laws. Is it really a term you want to use here? https://www.tobaccotactics.org/article/countering-industry-arguments-against-plain-packaging-the-nanny-state-is-going-too-far/ https://www.tobaccotactics.org/article/countering-industry-a...
- ruthmarx 2y ago
  > Nanny state is a term coined by tobacco industry in their lobbying against tobacco laws. Is it really a term you want to use here? Sure, because most people h ave no idea where the term originates from and it now has a life of its own. It's the standard term for this sort of thing.
- tirant 2y ago
  Why not? It is about treating people as adults or children.
- bigstrat2003 2y ago
  Who cares? Whether or not it applies in this particular case, it's a useful term. Rejecting ideas because of who they come from is the very antithesis of intellectual maturity.
- refurb 2y ago
  Just because an "evil" group used, or even coined, a term doesn't mean it's not a useful term.

llm_trw 2y ago

[flagged]

infradig 2y ago
Australia was founded in 1901 as a federation of free states.
- llm_trw 2y ago
  More than half of which were penal colonies.

isaacremuant 2y ago

Or, you know, don't keep going into this path of authoritarianism. Your comment is absolutely disingenuous pretending that this Draconian move can be implemented with open society or transparency. This is the same nation that went absolutely bonkers with their COVID policies and their inhumane treatment of anyone who desired freedom or bodily autonomy.

kaladin-jasnah 2y ago

It's going to be interesting to see how one can use cryptography to do this privately. I wonder if the cost and complexity of such a thing would result in big companies simply requiring some kind of "take a picture of your ID" style verification. Estonia's ID card https://www.id.ee/en/ https://www.id.ee/en/ could certainly be a model; still not sure how to do age verification. My best guess would be some sort of cryptographic signing that refuses to sign if you are below a certain age.

russelg 2y ago

People are far more worried about the government knowing that you're using a social media site, than they are about the social media site knowing who you are. I don't see a way this could be implemented where the govt doesn't know what site is requesting the verification. I'm assuming it'll be an openid type flow where the social media sites will have to register client IDs with the govt myID, in which case the govt will directly be able to tie a person to what social media they use. It won't tell them what account it links to on the social media side, but depending on what data is returned, they can easily just ask the social media company for this info later on.

greggsy 2y ago
The proposed digital ID solution is designed to protect the individual from this type of information disclosure.
tzs 2y ago
> I don't see a way this could be implemented where the govt doesn't know what site is requesting the verification Blind signatures. Briefly, a blind signature is a way for a party to sign a document without seeing the contents of the document. The cryptographic forms of this, at a high level, work like this: 1. You do a keyed reversible transformation on document D that produces a transformed document D'. This is called "blinding" the document. 2. They sign D' with signature S'. 3. You apply the reverse transformation to S', which gives you a signature S from them for D. This is "unblinding". Use a random key each time you need to get something blind signed and throw away the key afterwards. Even if they later see D and S they can't match them up with any D' and S' because they don't know the key. For age verification D would be some kind of token you obtain from the social media company during age verification. You'd then have the government blind sign that with a signature that is only used when the government has verified you are at least 16. You'd unblind the signature and give that back to the social media company. There are also protocols to do this using zero knowledge proofs.
hcfman 2y ago
I suspect that it is technically possible to make an anonymous identification service because the result to the social media site just had to be yes or no. In the Netherlands you have a government identification service that identifies people to other government sites. And a bank service that uses the banks identification service also roll to identify to other sites. Technically it would be possible to delete any trace afterwards. However. I have never ever in my life seen any government choose not to take advantage of an opportunity to exert more control over their citizens if the possibility exists. Plus rather than force it on everyone it should be a choice of the parents. Clearly not doing this is better but in the absence of that parents deciding is better for the others.

matt_trentini 2y ago

You're far more optimistic than I about our government being able to implement a secure, reasonable solution for age verification. COVIDSafe was the last technical undertaking and it was expensive and a completely inept implementation. The MyGov website is another failed attempt at keeping personal data secure. Further, it seems likely that social media companies are likely to come out of this with even more information about us. Government and tech do not mix well (at least in Australia).

Terr_ 2y ago

> national IDs to be able to provide cryptographically secure proofs of age Nah, this is an antipattern we've seen before. A veritable Pandora's Box whispering to be opened. There is a much simpler and safer solution: 1. A disclosure law, which requires sites to somehow (e.g. HTTP headers) show their nature as a social media site, porn site, etc. 2. Parents can choose to purchase devices/software for their children with a parental-lock, set those filters and permissions to match their own locality or personal preferences, and whitelist any necessary exceptions. This way the implementation costs of the shifting, complex, never-ending demands will fall onto the groups that actually want to use it, instead of all sites in the world being potential legal jeopardy for failing to implement all the censorship rules of every possible visitor. It also means that most enforcement (and exceptions) move out into a physical realm which parents are at least able to see and control. > without leaking identity Leaking identity to the site is only half the problem, the other is leaking activity to the government. I'd ratehr not have a Government Internet Decency Office with an easy list of every single site I ever tried to view or register-for, without any kind of warrant or other due-process.

kumarvvr 2y ago
The problem with this approach is that you will have two groups of children, the ones who have access and the ones who don't have access. This is a worse problem than allowing it for all. Its another vector of temptation, distraction, in-equality, etc.
- hcfman 2y ago
  But not a worse problem than blocking it for everyone
- oblio 2y ago
  I'd say the next steps is that you also force institutions for kids to ban it, regardless of parent choice. Parents must present proof of disabling said websites for their children. Or their kids can just not have those devices with them. Do this for schools, activity clubs, restaurants, fast for food places, etc, and you've basically hit 80% of places where kids are all the time.

lmm 2y ago

This is the opposite of democracy - a group imposing rules "for their own good" on people it doesn't represent who have no recourse. If they had any integrity they'd be banning it for adults not children.

gonzo41 2y ago
We do have recourse. What you'll see is more independent candidates get voted in to overturn the law. Once the government of the day starts badly implementing it the conservatives who voted with the center left party will split off and start attacking for it's repeal. It's a nothing burger law designed to look tough and do nothing.
- larrysalibra 2y ago
  under 16 year olds cannot vote, are not represented and have no recourse. when one group votes to make rules for another group that cannot vote, it can be called many things, but "democracy" is not one of them.
  - bluefirebrand 2y ago
    When adults make decisions for children it's called "parenting" Acting like we should be seriously treating children and teens as an equal political group is a joke
    - amatecha 2y ago
      Hey, didn't you get the memo that teenagers know everything, have the simple & straightforward solutions to all of life's problems, and are never wrong?? ;)
    - pizza 2y ago
      I'm not sure what's worse: giving parental responsibility to politicians or equating craven paternalism to benevolent parenting.
    - 2y ago

est 2y ago

you must be joking, that's exactly how communist government works. Given strict laws but "don’t prescribe any particular ... methods" so one day law enforcements can extort a large sum of fine from companies as needed. The only difference is Commie leaders invent bullshit "laws" by themselves and no voting.

mianos 2y ago

I highly doubt they have the expertise to implement anything remotely 'cryptographic.' Their level of competence seems stuck in the 1950s, stamping paper forms, while anything more complex is handed off to consultants in Australia. These consultants appear far more interested in lining their pockets than in understanding technology or math. The far more likely scenario is they piss a couple of hundred billion away on the first company that shows up with a slick-sounding, half-baked platform, claiming it can magically solve all their problems with just a few "minor" tweaks. I'm an interested party, I have a 13 year old daughter who would benefit from a little less time on social media. But that's my problem, and my belief that these idiots in our government could help me with that is zero percent. I am probably in the .1% of households where dads know more than kids. (If photometric id comes in, I want to be in the fake moustache business).

turbojet1321 2y ago
There is myID (formerly myGovID) which would be the logical vehicle for a government provided age verification service. I've heard (but can't find a source) that it's build on OIDC/OAuth, so extending it to be an IdP exposing only specific claims (ie, age) shouldn't be a huge leap.
- linuxandrew 2y ago
  myID as it stands is a bit of a farce. It uses OIDC under the hood, but it only supports end users that download the myID app on their smartphone via the Google Play Store or Apple App Store. Security is effectively outsourced to Google and Apple as the user's identity is "pinned" to their smartphone. Take myGov in contrast which is web-capable and supports users to use a Yubikey or Passkey/Webauthn-capable device to authenticate. Under the Australian Digital ID scheme myGov will likely be usurped by myID, which is, in my view, an inferior scheme which blatantly ignores basic standards.
mianos 2y ago
I was too right, they already selected a slick sounding half baked platform: https://accscheme.com/ https://accscheme.com/

gloosx 2y ago

>the government act with expertise to solve the problem Do you have an idea which problem did they solve? Did banning certain psychoactive drugs solved the problem of drug abuse? Maybe banning alcohol removed it from the streets during great depression? Banning gambling? Kids will find a way to get into their social media accounts anyway, and then these democrats will tell you they need to ban every VPN service and set-up Deep Packet Inspection devices for every ISP, make their own govt CA, and trust me all of it will be done in the name of people and child safety. Sad to see a dysfunctional govt. which bans and calls it a solution to the problem. When I will be in the office I would ban the whole concept of banning itself once and forever, and any politician who proposed a single ban in his life would be banned from service. I will of course step out for proposing this ban immediately.

oblio 2y ago
Banning smoking in many places plus banning advertising it plus banning selling it to kids reduced smoking by unfathomable amounts.
- gloosx 2y ago
  Do you have data do back it up? From quickly looking at historical records online, I can't see any unfathomable amounts reduction, It's levelled on 20-30% of smokers among kids, and it remains a core challenge for child and adolescent health to the current day (according to 2020 WHO report[0]), plus they started to smoke vapes. So did the bans you sampled really work, or do they just smoke more discreetly and use tricks to buy cigarettes now, making the whole thing more inaccessible and desirable for an average child? [0] https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/05-06-2020-smoking-still-a-core-challenge-for-child-and-adolescent-health-reveals-who-report https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/05-06-2020-smoking-stil...
  - Timwi 2y ago
    I might be wrong but I read the OP’s comment as sarcastic.

linuxandrew 2y ago

> They specifically don’t prescribe any particular age verification methods. This would be a great time to follow up with legislation that updates their national IDs to be able to provide cryptographically secure proofs of age without leaking identity. Hard disagree. We do not need an internet driver's license. Australians are supposed to have a right to interact with organisations with privacy protections under the Privacy Act 1988, like APP2 which allows individuals to deal with organisations anonymously or pseudonymously. Social media companies are doing a great deal of harm to society, but banning under-16s is tackling the symptom, not the problem. All people should have more rights and protections, like opting out (or better, opting in) to infinite scroll and algorithmic content suggestions as opposed to subscribed content. Algorithmic content today is akin to spam in the early 2000s which governments regulated and has had some impact on bad behaviour by local companies (of course I am not under any pretense that spam will ever really be solved). Social media users should be able to opt in or out of content categories which AI could potentially help with that categorisation, ideally in an uber-transparent way. I'm young enough that "modern" social media was just starting up when I was a teenager. It's not clear that banning under 16s from modern digital communication would provide any benefits (which, by the way, social media is very loosely defined under the amendment). > Absent that, I’m sure many of the comments to come will worry about the privacy implications. The big issue is that we are importing the UK model which will see identity outsourcing to companies like Yoti and AU10TIX, the latter which was hacked in 2021 and led to some pretty serious implications for affected users. Of course the reality is that Meta is already doing age and identity verification on users who use privacy-protecting technologies like Firefox Container Tabs, at least in Australia, and has been for a number of years. This usually leads to an account being blocked until the user provides their ID via a photo. This will become formalised so that accounts that are detected as possibly being U16 (via various techniques like profiling and data matching against external sources) will be requested ID, and Yoti will likely be used to actually perform that verification. Another big concern will be that this is forced onto smaller operators like Australian Mastodon sites, internet forums, mailing lists and others.

liammclennan 2y ago
Did you see the "without leaking identity" part? Your comment seems to ignore that.

vermilingua 2y ago

> great to see the government act with expertise I’ve seen the Australian government accused of many things, but that’s certainly a first. This is the same country whose prime minister once said “The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia”.

globalnode 2y ago
That was back in 2017 when the govts were all up in arms over encryption. Apparently they don't mind it too much now, which means it all must be back door'able for them.
- vermilingua 2y ago
  Has been backdoor(ed|able) for FVEY (via Australia) since 2018. https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about-us/our-portfolios/national-security/lawful-access-telecommunications/data-encryption https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about-us/our-portfolios/natio...
  - globalnode 2y ago
    5y in jail if you refuse to give a password and power to covertly access devices and conceal that fact if they desire. Yikes, they don't mess around.
    - Der_Einzige 2y ago
      By far the most bootlicking country in the Anglo world. Disgusting, and their political system should be shattered into the wind
      - ruthmarx 2y ago
        The problem is Australians are fine with it. They might be the population with the most people saying "if you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to worry about" in the world, by a large margin.

lobochrome 2y ago

Dear god, no. This doesn't need more technology. The whole purpose of this is only to give parents a reason to say no. Often, a single kid in a class with an unrestricted iPhone is enough to poison the well. Now it's much, much simpler. Kids understand when you say it's against the law.

71bw 2y ago
>Kids understand when you say it's against the law. Jesus, were you born 40? I don't know a single person who didn't willingly pirate media, games and break other laws (usual suspects like trespassing, underage + public drinking...) as kids and teens. They will not care about the law if they want to do something it limits.
- lobochrome 2y ago
  I’m not called Jesus and I age normally. Do you have children?
  - bongodongobob 2y ago
    Just stop. You're being incredibly naive.

chris_wot 2y ago

lol - hardly! Submissions were announced on the 22nd, this closed on the 23rd, the Committee was so blindsided they literally requested submissions should 1-2 pages long, the bill was introduced to the House on the 26th and passed on the 29th. That’s some really well reviewed legislation. Parliament sitting days close on the 31st.

magnetowasright 2y ago

> functional democratic government Wait, where? Not in my Australia. Saying our govt has any competency is also gobsmacking. Yep, it's better here than other places (for certain groups) but when the notorious hate rag daily mail condemns (literal) neo-nazis marching and saluting in support of transphobe Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull you've really got to question what kind of functional democratic government or expertise leads and legislates this country. Literally the daily mail thinks our neo-nazi problem is a bit much. I genuinely can't wrap my head around that. The daily effing mail. That's the state of this country; what a healthy democracy that literal neo-nazi groups are free to demonstrate against human rights while the police force people doing nothing more for human rights than holding the pathetic signs back from the streets so the frog marching idiots can continue unimpeded. Utterly disgraceful state of affairs. It's so embarrassing. This legislation isn't going to stop kids accessing social media or prevent any of the related social harms, unfortunately. It's just going to give licence to erode privacy even further. All our pollies are so dangerously incompetent, especially when it comes to anything relating to computers, it's just enraging. It's a disgrace. Our governments don't give a single shit about human rights or the welfare of the people in our country. This law is no different, but it sure is a great distraction. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11879737/Neo-Nazis-throw-Hitler-salutes-trans-protest-outside-Parliament-House-Melbourne-Victoria.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11879737/Neo-Nazis-...

throwawaythekey 2y ago
Call me oldschool but to me a functioning democracy is where anyone can express their opinions. Neo nazis, zionists, anti zionists, jews, palestinians, socialists, globalists, communists, libertarians etc.
- magnetowasright 2y ago
  Yes, a functional democracy means neonazis advocating for genociding are protected from the vicious sign holders by the police. Yes, that is definitely a functional democracy. The state defending neonazis from people holding signs is absolutely the free marketplace of ideas in action. Genocide is acceptable if enough people vote for it. Wow, what a great idea! I one day hope to be so privileged to actually think like that. Give me half a billion dollars and a lobotomy and that's as close as I'll get; I'm not sure it'll be enough.