5 ms·

I like the spirit but wouldn't this run afoul of one or two laws? Identity fraud or some such? I'm not in the UK, so I don't have any idea about their laws, bu

I like the spirit but wouldn't this run afoul of one or two laws? Identity fraud or some such? I'm not in the UK, so I don't have any idea about their laws, but I'd be shocked to find this was above board. Your FAQ claims it's a parody site and claims "The ID number isn't valid and you can't use the card for anything real." but you've just confirmed here it can indeed be used for real things (discord, reddit). Your domain registration is UK-based, so, be careful!

Mindwipe 1y ago
The only way you'd ever get found out is if the affected MP was lying to the public and the identity documents do indeed get retained...
- qualeed 1y ago
  >The only way you'd ever get found out is if the affected MP was lying to the public and the identity documents do indeed get retained... I'm more talking about the developer of the site rather than the users. And the developer could potentially be found out if they posted it on a popular hacking website and used a known alias and registered the domain in the UK. But, if they're comfortable, all the more power to them. As I said, I do really like the spirit of the site.
  - shubb 1y ago
    If I was that developer, I'd blacklist embedding of all British MPs and councilors to avoid fraud. This would also block the entire UK political class from accessing adult materials (I got blocked by a wine forum), which would be a very effective protest...
- arrowsmith 1y ago
  The generated addresses aren't real. It gave a London address for my MP; I know where he lives and it isn't London. Most MPs' home addresses are actually quite easy to find. Mine's was printed below his name on the ballot paper last election – a nice reminder of how we used to have a high-trust society. I doubt this practice will be continued for much longer.
  - timje1 1y ago
    Yeah the address on all the IDs is for parliament. I assume one could find em there
chippiewill 1y ago
I agree, the UK Police wouldn't typically let you get away with "it's just a joke". This would constitute a mixture of identity theft, fake ID and misuse of computers.
- timje1 1y ago
  It's literally just sticking the MPs name into an AI and asking for it to generate a mock ID for them. None of their real data is being used (e.g. their face, their DoB, the address) and the mock IDs wouldn't fool anyone for a second. I'd love if someone who understands the law would weigh in though
  - John7878781 1y ago
    It's better to be safe than sorry. For your own best interest, I would shut down the site and delete this post.
    - brookst 1y ago
      “Don’t upset the autocrats!”
      - arrowsmith 1y ago
        You kid, but that's very good advice in most human societies at most points in history.
      - subscribed 1y ago
        You jest, but a barrister was threatened with arrest while holding a blank piece of paper on the protest: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/barrister-threatened-with-arrest-says-we-must-allow-peaceful-protest-against-monarchy_uk_63202c37e4b000d988544c4c https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/barrister-threatened-...
        brookst 1y ago
        I wasn’t jesting. I was (too) obliquely saying that when we all hasten to accede to the autocrats before they even ask, we become complicit in huge social evils. I’m not suggesting that everyone most do self-immolation, but if it were me, I would draw the line at being afraid of being “caught” for an obvious prank using no PII. Screw that, come arrest me if things have really gotten that bad.
nemomarx 1y ago
If you can fool discords implementation with a video game character they can't actually be checking very well?
- qualeed 1y ago
  I certainly agree! However, I doubt that's a strong legal argument.
  - arrowsmith 1y ago
    What law is being broken here exactly? It's certainly illegal to make fake IDs, but I don't know if that applies to just generating an image rather than fully forging a physical copy. And anyway these images look nothing like the real IDs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_licence_in_the_United_Kingdom#/media/File:UK_full_licence_dec_2021.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_licence_in_the_United_...
    - Aeolun 1y ago
      Hmm, yeah. It’s almost as if they deliberately made them look less like the real ID’s, because I have little doubt that openai would be perfectly capable of generating that image.
      - jrockway 1y ago
        Another thing to think about is that this is just passthrough from an AI model. If it's illegal to make a website that spits out fake IDs, then OpenAI is illegal until they filter them.
        antonvs 1y ago
        I'm not sure that argument would hold up legally. You could use an image editing site to create IDs and counterfeit currency as well, but such sites are legal.
pjc50 1y ago
What does the online safety act actually say about this? It's only supposed to be age verification, and if you are actually old enough does it matter how you proved it? Many of the age verification services explicitly promise not to retain photos!
- AlecSchueler 1y ago
  https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/part/4/chapter/1 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/part/4/chapter/... It talks explicitly about verifying your identity, not your age, so no loopholes today I'm afraid
  - pjc50 1y ago
    .. for Category 1 services. I've already noted that several age verification services explicitly promise _not_ to retain your identity. I'm having trouble working out what's category 1. Schedule 1 defines exemptions https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/schedule/1/part/1 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/schedule/1/part... ; otherwise this refers OFCOM to "critera" which I can't find. As I understand it, Wikipedia are seeking judicial review of OFCOM's placing them in category 1, which requires the most stringent checks including identity.
    - AlecSchueler 1y ago
      I made no mention of identity retention.
belorn 1y ago
Law often focus on intent. I am not sure if identity fraud can be applied if the person are not gaining anything (assuming they are of the right age). Service providers might be of fault if their verification practices are not compliant with regulations, but I don't know if the law puts any requirements on users to verify their identity. To me this seems more similar to a people participating in a masquerade or comedian who dress themselves in the likeness of a politician. They are using the identity of the politician, but not in the way that identity fraud is intended to prevent. Domain registration is an interesting example. To my knowledge, falsifying domain registration data is not a crime. Domain registrars have regulations to verify the identity of customers, including the recourse to suspend a domain if the data is incorrect. I could see a case if a person impersonate a politician in order to falsely attribute content of a website, under a registered domain name, as belonging/sanctioned by that politician, but that would likely fall under defamation laws. The crime could also be identity fraud, but the intent would be defamation.
- qualeed 1y ago
  >Service providers might be of fault if their verification practices are not compliant with regulations, but I don't know if the law puts any requirements on users to verify their identity. As I mentioned in another comment, I've heard no compelling argument that differentiates between this scenario (e.g. kid uses this site to access a nsfw subreddit) and an underage kid buying smokes with a fake ID. In that scenario, the police don't just pick 1 entity to punish. The kid gets in trouble, the store (most likely) gets in trouble, and (if found) the fake ID supplier gets in trouble. In the end, I hope that the owner of the website never has to find out exactly where and how the laws shake out, and that "it's a satirical website" is a strong enough defense. But from my armchair, I would suspect that the UK police/legislators would not look favorably on the "it's satire" defense. Especially because of this post which advertises that the fake ID works for some services, and there are under-18s on HN. >Law often focus on intent. I would expect that advertising that the IDs work on real services undermines any defense of "my intent was satire".
  - belorn 1y ago
    In the case of the underage kid, they are actually gaining something by using a fake ID to buy smokes for which they otherwise would not be able to buy. The situation that the website is promoting would be if the kid used an ID of an other underage kid, for which they would be equally denied to buy smokes with. The outcome (and intent) need to be one where the user do not gain anything practical. I work at a domain registrar and I have yet to here anyone talking about criminal punishment for false registration data. I have also never heard about any one being charged for filling in the wrong phone or email address when signing up for a service or membership. Looking at my local laws here in Sweden, the law text for identity fraud explicitly requires that the use of something else identity must result in some for of direct harm to the person. UK law could be different, but I have yet to hear something to indicate this.
ralferoo 1y ago
> I like the spirit but wouldn't this run afoul of one or two laws? Identity fraud or some such? I would say not, but then again I'm no lawyer. There's plausible deniability in that there's a big "this is satire" watermark on top of the licence. The DOB in part 3 is wrong, and the driver number in part 5 is modified to include the 5 letters of the surname, but is otherwise incorrect. The DOB encoded in the licence number doesn't even match the wrong DOB in part 3 either. If anything accepts this as valid ID, then it just shows how farcical the system is.

Mindwipe 1y ago

The only way you'd ever get found out is if the affected MP was lying to the public and the identity documents do indeed get retained...

qualeed 1y ago
>The only way you'd ever get found out is if the affected MP was lying to the public and the identity documents do indeed get retained... I'm more talking about the developer of the site rather than the users. And the developer could potentially be found out if they posted it on a popular hacking website and used a known alias and registered the domain in the UK. But, if they're comfortable, all the more power to them. As I said, I do really like the spirit of the site.
- shubb 1y ago
  If I was that developer, I'd blacklist embedding of all British MPs and councilors to avoid fraud. This would also block the entire UK political class from accessing adult materials (I got blocked by a wine forum), which would be a very effective protest...
arrowsmith 1y ago
The generated addresses aren't real. It gave a London address for my MP; I know where he lives and it isn't London. Most MPs' home addresses are actually quite easy to find. Mine's was printed below his name on the ballot paper last election – a nice reminder of how we used to have a high-trust society. I doubt this practice will be continued for much longer.
- timje1 1y ago
  Yeah the address on all the IDs is for parliament. I assume one could find em there

chippiewill 1y ago

I agree, the UK Police wouldn't typically let you get away with "it's just a joke". This would constitute a mixture of identity theft, fake ID and misuse of computers.

timje1 1y ago
It's literally just sticking the MPs name into an AI and asking for it to generate a mock ID for them. None of their real data is being used (e.g. their face, their DoB, the address) and the mock IDs wouldn't fool anyone for a second. I'd love if someone who understands the law would weigh in though
- John7878781 1y ago
  It's better to be safe than sorry. For your own best interest, I would shut down the site and delete this post.
  - brookst 1y ago
    “Don’t upset the autocrats!”
    - arrowsmith 1y ago
      You kid, but that's very good advice in most human societies at most points in history.
    - subscribed 1y ago
      You jest, but a barrister was threatened with arrest while holding a blank piece of paper on the protest: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/barrister-threatened-with-arrest-says-we-must-allow-peaceful-protest-against-monarchy_uk_63202c37e4b000d988544c4c https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/barrister-threatened-...
      - brookst 1y ago
        I wasn’t jesting. I was (too) obliquely saying that when we all hasten to accede to the autocrats before they even ask, we become complicit in huge social evils. I’m not suggesting that everyone most do self-immolation, but if it were me, I would draw the line at being afraid of being “caught” for an obvious prank using no PII. Screw that, come arrest me if things have really gotten that bad.

nemomarx 1y ago

If you can fool discords implementation with a video game character they can't actually be checking very well?

qualeed 1y ago
I certainly agree! However, I doubt that's a strong legal argument.
- arrowsmith 1y ago
  What law is being broken here exactly? It's certainly illegal to make fake IDs, but I don't know if that applies to just generating an image rather than fully forging a physical copy. And anyway these images look nothing like the real IDs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_licence_in_the_United_Kingdom#/media/File:UK_full_licence_dec_2021.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_licence_in_the_United_...
  - Aeolun 1y ago
    Hmm, yeah. It’s almost as if they deliberately made them look less like the real ID’s, because I have little doubt that openai would be perfectly capable of generating that image.
    - jrockway 1y ago
      Another thing to think about is that this is just passthrough from an AI model. If it's illegal to make a website that spits out fake IDs, then OpenAI is illegal until they filter them.
      - antonvs 1y ago
        I'm not sure that argument would hold up legally. You could use an image editing site to create IDs and counterfeit currency as well, but such sites are legal.

pjc50 1y ago

What does the online safety act actually say about this? It's only supposed to be age verification, and if you are actually old enough does it matter how you proved it? Many of the age verification services explicitly promise not to retain photos!

AlecSchueler 1y ago
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/part/4/chapter/1 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/part/4/chapter/... It talks explicitly about verifying your identity, not your age, so no loopholes today I'm afraid
- pjc50 1y ago
  .. for Category 1 services. I've already noted that several age verification services explicitly promise _not_ to retain your identity. I'm having trouble working out what's category 1. Schedule 1 defines exemptions https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/schedule/1/part/1 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/schedule/1/part... ; otherwise this refers OFCOM to "critera" which I can't find. As I understand it, Wikipedia are seeking judicial review of OFCOM's placing them in category 1, which requires the most stringent checks including identity.
  - AlecSchueler 1y ago
    I made no mention of identity retention.

belorn 1y ago

Law often focus on intent. I am not sure if identity fraud can be applied if the person are not gaining anything (assuming they are of the right age). Service providers might be of fault if their verification practices are not compliant with regulations, but I don't know if the law puts any requirements on users to verify their identity. To me this seems more similar to a people participating in a masquerade or comedian who dress themselves in the likeness of a politician. They are using the identity of the politician, but not in the way that identity fraud is intended to prevent. Domain registration is an interesting example. To my knowledge, falsifying domain registration data is not a crime. Domain registrars have regulations to verify the identity of customers, including the recourse to suspend a domain if the data is incorrect. I could see a case if a person impersonate a politician in order to falsely attribute content of a website, under a registered domain name, as belonging/sanctioned by that politician, but that would likely fall under defamation laws. The crime could also be identity fraud, but the intent would be defamation.

qualeed 1y ago
>Service providers might be of fault if their verification practices are not compliant with regulations, but I don't know if the law puts any requirements on users to verify their identity. As I mentioned in another comment, I've heard no compelling argument that differentiates between this scenario (e.g. kid uses this site to access a nsfw subreddit) and an underage kid buying smokes with a fake ID. In that scenario, the police don't just pick 1 entity to punish. The kid gets in trouble, the store (most likely) gets in trouble, and (if found) the fake ID supplier gets in trouble. In the end, I hope that the owner of the website never has to find out exactly where and how the laws shake out, and that "it's a satirical website" is a strong enough defense. But from my armchair, I would suspect that the UK police/legislators would not look favorably on the "it's satire" defense. Especially because of this post which advertises that the fake ID works for some services, and there are under-18s on HN. >Law often focus on intent. I would expect that advertising that the IDs work on real services undermines any defense of "my intent was satire".
- belorn 1y ago
  In the case of the underage kid, they are actually gaining something by using a fake ID to buy smokes for which they otherwise would not be able to buy. The situation that the website is promoting would be if the kid used an ID of an other underage kid, for which they would be equally denied to buy smokes with. The outcome (and intent) need to be one where the user do not gain anything practical. I work at a domain registrar and I have yet to here anyone talking about criminal punishment for false registration data. I have also never heard about any one being charged for filling in the wrong phone or email address when signing up for a service or membership. Looking at my local laws here in Sweden, the law text for identity fraud explicitly requires that the use of something else identity must result in some for of direct harm to the person. UK law could be different, but I have yet to hear something to indicate this.

ralferoo 1y ago

> I like the spirit but wouldn't this run afoul of one or two laws? Identity fraud or some such? I would say not, but then again I'm no lawyer. There's plausible deniability in that there's a big "this is satire" watermark on top of the licence. The DOB in part 3 is wrong, and the driver number in part 5 is modified to include the 5 letters of the surname, but is otherwise incorrect. The DOB encoded in the licence number doesn't even match the wrong DOB in part 3 either. If anything accepts this as valid ID, then it just shows how farcical the system is.