3 ms·

Funny you use Netherlands as a good example, considering that famously, their existing unusually thorough registry was super helpful for the Nazis rounding up j

by knorker 3mo ago

Funny you use Netherlands as a good example, considering that famously, their existing unusually thorough registry was super helpful for the Nazis rounding up jews later. I don't think it's Godwin's Law when you are so spot on, exactly describing the worst case.

tikkabhuna 3mo ago
Why would an age verification app need to know your ethnicity/religion? Governments likely already know your name, age, place of birth, so having an app with a standard API for verifying users isn't giving the government additional data.
- snottynose 3mo ago
  It is one extra attack vector. There is a data leak reported every week, and it is now apparent we cannot trust any organization to handle any datum securely, at all. It has gotten to the point where I now consider every piece of information compromised and sold on the dark web as soon as I am forced to transfer it to a third party. Because those are the odds.
  - soco 3mo ago
    It's also replacing all the personal information stores from thousand applications and websites you have previously registered, or would have to. So arguably it's thousand attack vectors less.
  - kspacewalk2 3mo ago
    Doing absolutely everything useful with that data is "one extra attack vector". That is not any kind of a persuasive argument in itself.
- lstodd 3mo ago
  "government" age verification app will be made and maintan ed by some corp anyways. so it will gather extra data, sell it sideways and leak like hell. (as they already do with all the data they already have)
  - roundabout-host 3mo ago
    Since it requires Android or iOS, Google/Apple can gather the same data too.
    - lstodd 3mo ago
      They did this from the beginning, still one can not cease trying to limit the exposure.
  - alistairSH 3mo ago
    I'm imagining something like recreation.gov in the US - it's the portal for booking campsites and other activities at national parks. It's run by BAH at great profit - most of the fees we pay aren't going to the national park service, it almost all goes to our corporate overlords.
- chopin 3mo ago
  Governments will track with whom you verify. Much worse.
  - microtonal 3mo ago
    Can we not spread nonsense narratives? One of the explicit requirements of the EU age verification system is that they cannot: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/factpages/blueprint-age-verification-solution-help-protect-minors-online https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/factpages/blueprint... First, the user downloads the app onto their phone and sets it up by certifying their age. This can be done with a biometric passport/ID card, a national eID (e.g. national ID Card or other electronic identification mean), a pre-installed third-party app (e.g. a banking app), or in person (e.g. at the post office). Only the information confirming that the user is over the age will be saved in the app. No name, no birthday, or any other data is saved. After completing this step, the communication between the app and the provider certifying the user’s age (e.g. eID, third-party app) ends. No further data is exchanged. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/faqs/eu-age-verification-solution https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/faqs/eu-age-verific...
    - chopin 3mo ago
      The app will likely have access to a bunch of unique identifiers on the phone. At least on Android whichs core concept is spying on the user. For me, it's enough that your activity could be linked to any unique identity. I don't want mandatory government apps on my phone, that's very chinese. We should strive for better. Edited to add: your linked FAQ conveniently leaves open how the communication between the web site and the app happens. There are myriad of ways that ones behaviour leaks in this step.
- impure-aqua 3mo ago
  It may not record your ethnicity or religion, but ID documents certainly record your sex, and plenty of authoritarians seem interested in identifying individuals for whom this database column has been updated.
snottynose 3mo ago
Not necessary to hearken back so far in history. In our present age the intelligence services consistently do not respect privacy rights of citizens, even when they are legally bound to. https://www-bitsoffreedom-nl.translate.goog/2026/07/06/aivd-en-mivd-hebben-hun-processen-nog-steeds-niet-op-orde/?_x_tr_sl=nl&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=nl&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://www-bitsoffreedom-nl.translate.goog/2026/07/06/aivd-...
- knorker 3mo ago
  Sure, but the poster was not just wrong, but wrong like "peace in our time" wrong. "Adolf? What a charming name" wrong. Amusingly fantastically wrong. NL may have its own issues like you linked to, but more uniquely had their collected data abused more than other countries in probably the worst event in history.
trashb 3mo ago
Additionally there was a leak of the personal information of covid patients, the official tracking app was not affected as far as I can tell. However even if the app is secure the storage and handling of the information is a different matter and it has been shown that care is not always taken.
skrebbel 3mo ago
I don’t follow. The Dutch tax office has substantially more complete records right now. Even if they don’t track race or religion as explicitly as they did in the 40s, your hypothetical invading Nazis can run some local AI over people’s last names and get close enough. How is, of all things, an age verification app going to make that worse? I mean I understand your argument in principle but it seems you’re arguing against ~every present-day functional government and not against an age verification app.
- knorker 3mo ago
  I'm not even saying your conclusion is wrong. But choosing Netherlands about how information control is safe in the hands of the government is a bit of an own goal. Like if I was the boss of a train company I would probably not put up a photo of Mussolini as a motivational poster. Well… maybe I would, but only ironically. > How is, of all things, an age verification app going to make that worse? What are you arguing for, here? If everything were perfectly anonymous, maybe. But NOT ONCE in history has governments decided to not abuse power. It'd be so easy to just put a tracker in there or something. All these "think of the children" arguments are ALWAYS red herrings. Literally any action, any freedom denied, can be justified in the fight against CSAM. And so they get rushed through and abused. The EU DNS filter (CSAADF) was literally IMMEDIATELY abused to block other things too. "It's just age verification". Is it, though? How do you verify age without verifying identity? How do you verify its use, without tracking. Provably without tracking. Provably without what's called "turnkey tyranny"? I think if your argument, which is an extremely common argument, is "I just want to block children's access to bad stuff on the Internet", then you cannot possibly have been paying attention to this debate that's been going on since at least the mid 1990s. Were you even born when this was being discussed? If that's your argument then you have about 30 years of catching up to do before you should speak. [1] yes, I know Mussolini did not in fact make the trains run on time.
  - dzjkb 3mo ago
    >how do you verify age without verifying identity zero-knowledge proofs
izacus 3mo ago
> Funny you use Netherlands as a good example, considering that famously, their existing unusually thorough registry was super helpful for the Nazis rounding up jews later. To avoid rounding up the jews you... create a government that doesn't round up jews. You don't fight arbitraty useful tools which then end up in bizarre situations like in US where people can't vote because of this bizarre idea that government shouldn't track voter lists. EU governments mostly have a list of registered citizens with their birth dates and their adresses. And noone has been rounding up anyone for almost a century... something we can't say for another world country which apparently doesn't keep records of their voters (useful to prevent people of colors from voting!) and somehow is rounding up people on the streets right now.
- knorker 3mo ago
  Yup, "just don't do that, then" is better. But I have to point out that NL gov did not round up jews, but the bad outcome arrived anyway, from outside the system. So in the example we're talking about, that was not a solution. Other than that, I agree.

by knorker 3mo ago

tikkabhuna 3mo ago

Why would an age verification app need to know your ethnicity/religion? Governments likely already know your name, age, place of birth, so having an app with a standard API for verifying users isn't giving the government additional data.

snottynose 3mo ago
It is one extra attack vector. There is a data leak reported every week, and it is now apparent we cannot trust any organization to handle any datum securely, at all. It has gotten to the point where I now consider every piece of information compromised and sold on the dark web as soon as I am forced to transfer it to a third party. Because those are the odds.
- soco 3mo ago
  It's also replacing all the personal information stores from thousand applications and websites you have previously registered, or would have to. So arguably it's thousand attack vectors less.
- kspacewalk2 3mo ago
  Doing absolutely everything useful with that data is "one extra attack vector". That is not any kind of a persuasive argument in itself.
lstodd 3mo ago
"government" age verification app will be made and maintan ed by some corp anyways. so it will gather extra data, sell it sideways and leak like hell. (as they already do with all the data they already have)
- roundabout-host 3mo ago
  Since it requires Android or iOS, Google/Apple can gather the same data too.
  - lstodd 3mo ago
    They did this from the beginning, still one can not cease trying to limit the exposure.
- alistairSH 3mo ago
  I'm imagining something like recreation.gov in the US - it's the portal for booking campsites and other activities at national parks. It's run by BAH at great profit - most of the fees we pay aren't going to the national park service, it almost all goes to our corporate overlords.
chopin 3mo ago
Governments will track with whom you verify. Much worse.
- microtonal 3mo ago
  Can we not spread nonsense narratives? One of the explicit requirements of the EU age verification system is that they cannot: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/factpages/blueprint-age-verification-solution-help-protect-minors-online https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/factpages/blueprint... First, the user downloads the app onto their phone and sets it up by certifying their age. This can be done with a biometric passport/ID card, a national eID (e.g. national ID Card or other electronic identification mean), a pre-installed third-party app (e.g. a banking app), or in person (e.g. at the post office). Only the information confirming that the user is over the age will be saved in the app. No name, no birthday, or any other data is saved. After completing this step, the communication between the app and the provider certifying the user’s age (e.g. eID, third-party app) ends. No further data is exchanged. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/faqs/eu-age-verification-solution https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/faqs/eu-age-verific...
  - chopin 3mo ago
    The app will likely have access to a bunch of unique identifiers on the phone. At least on Android whichs core concept is spying on the user. For me, it's enough that your activity could be linked to any unique identity. I don't want mandatory government apps on my phone, that's very chinese. We should strive for better. Edited to add: your linked FAQ conveniently leaves open how the communication between the web site and the app happens. There are myriad of ways that ones behaviour leaks in this step.
impure-aqua 3mo ago
It may not record your ethnicity or religion, but ID documents certainly record your sex, and plenty of authoritarians seem interested in identifying individuals for whom this database column has been updated.

snottynose 3mo ago

Not necessary to hearken back so far in history. In our present age the intelligence services consistently do not respect privacy rights of citizens, even when they are legally bound to. https://www-bitsoffreedom-nl.translate.goog/2026/07/06/aivd-en-mivd-hebben-hun-processen-nog-steeds-niet-op-orde/?_x_tr_sl=nl&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=nl&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://www-bitsoffreedom-nl.translate.goog/2026/07/06/aivd-...

knorker 3mo ago
Sure, but the poster was not just wrong, but wrong like "peace in our time" wrong. "Adolf? What a charming name" wrong. Amusingly fantastically wrong. NL may have its own issues like you linked to, but more uniquely had their collected data abused more than other countries in probably the worst event in history.

trashb 3mo ago

Additionally there was a leak of the personal information of covid patients, the official tracking app was not affected as far as I can tell. However even if the app is secure the storage and handling of the information is a different matter and it has been shown that care is not always taken.

skrebbel 3mo ago

I don’t follow. The Dutch tax office has substantially more complete records right now. Even if they don’t track race or religion as explicitly as they did in the 40s, your hypothetical invading Nazis can run some local AI over people’s last names and get close enough. How is, of all things, an age verification app going to make that worse? I mean I understand your argument in principle but it seems you’re arguing against ~every present-day functional government and not against an age verification app.

knorker 3mo ago
I'm not even saying your conclusion is wrong. But choosing Netherlands about how information control is safe in the hands of the government is a bit of an own goal. Like if I was the boss of a train company I would probably not put up a photo of Mussolini as a motivational poster. Well… maybe I would, but only ironically. > How is, of all things, an age verification app going to make that worse? What are you arguing for, here? If everything were perfectly anonymous, maybe. But NOT ONCE in history has governments decided to not abuse power. It'd be so easy to just put a tracker in there or something. All these "think of the children" arguments are ALWAYS red herrings. Literally any action, any freedom denied, can be justified in the fight against CSAM. And so they get rushed through and abused. The EU DNS filter (CSAADF) was literally IMMEDIATELY abused to block other things too. "It's just age verification". Is it, though? How do you verify age without verifying identity? How do you verify its use, without tracking. Provably without tracking. Provably without what's called "turnkey tyranny"? I think if your argument, which is an extremely common argument, is "I just want to block children's access to bad stuff on the Internet", then you cannot possibly have been paying attention to this debate that's been going on since at least the mid 1990s. Were you even born when this was being discussed? If that's your argument then you have about 30 years of catching up to do before you should speak. [1] yes, I know Mussolini did not in fact make the trains run on time.
- dzjkb 3mo ago
  >how do you verify age without verifying identity zero-knowledge proofs

izacus 3mo ago

> Funny you use Netherlands as a good example, considering that famously, their existing unusually thorough registry was super helpful for the Nazis rounding up jews later. To avoid rounding up the jews you... create a government that doesn't round up jews. You don't fight arbitraty useful tools which then end up in bizarre situations like in US where people can't vote because of this bizarre idea that government shouldn't track voter lists. EU governments mostly have a list of registered citizens with their birth dates and their adresses. And noone has been rounding up anyone for almost a century... something we can't say for another world country which apparently doesn't keep records of their voters (useful to prevent people of colors from voting!) and somehow is rounding up people on the streets right now.

knorker 3mo ago
Yup, "just don't do that, then" is better. But I have to point out that NL gov did not round up jews, but the bad outcome arrived anyway, from outside the system. So in the example we're talking about, that was not a solution. Other than that, I agree.