alt Hacker NewsGoogle will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year
Comments
I find myself stuck on the fence with age checks.
Companies have show that they are incapable or unwilling to address the problems they cause. And market forces are not working to correct things. It’s also pretty obvious that saying “parent should take responsibility” is also not working. Just observe the world around you to know it’s a non starter.
This is where regulation is supposed to come in.
At the same time, companies have shown that they will abuse any personal information that is shared with them and we are now giving them more details about ourselves…
I think it's the old that need to be protected more on the Internet since they disproportionately fall prey to online scams. So let's age-gate their access to online services too. If you are old and want to send money to someone, you get age-gating and second-factor authorization from a competent young person. If you want to watch porn online, believe it or not, age-gating and second-factor authorization.
Can't we build a gateway in the internet that detects if someone is a influential CEO or something and just bar access to the internet?
Well, the API itself seems fairly well designed from a privacy perspective. It only shares age ranges, not specific ages, and only if you allow it. The data is also fuzzed to prevent an app from determining your exact birth date, and it's all tied in to the parental control system.[1]
The problem remains though that, since the laws this feature was created to comply with put the onus on Google to verify the user's age and not on the device owner (e.g. the parents), the method they use to determine the user's age to feed into this API is terrible from both a privacy and freedom perspective: they force you to send them a copy of your government ID, and delete your account if you don't comply.[3]
[1]: https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/17232873
[2]: https://developer.android.com/google/play/age-signals/unders...
I doubt the purpose is even age verification. They already can know I have a visa card which is credit card that can be only applied by an adult by looking at the BIN. Why they need my id card if the purpose is actually age verification?
This coordinated worldwide effort at the same time is very creepy.
> in our ongoing partnership with parents and developers by announcing the expansion of the Google Play Age Signals API
Which parents and which developers? How many of them? From where?
Seriously ready to fully drop google emails and services, i'm using vivaldi + personal email for a while now, the migration was slow a bit painful but complete. Only the phone is still attached to play store and google, but i'm 100% ready to switch to the fully supported Chinese variant of ColorOS and flush Google into the toilet once and for all. But my next phone will 100% be a Sailfish again.
I don't understand why apps need to know anything about a specific age. If we have to go down this road, which I really don't, why can't we just simply have verification whether or not an age fits within a range better yet a category. Yes, age can still be inferred, for example, under 21 or over 21.
Why is this part of Play Services? It should be something on-device as part of AOSP, not something that further entrenches Google.
(In case it's not obvious: rethorical question, Google just wants to do platform lock-in with Android and sees this as a useful means to bludgeon it.)
> The Play Age Signals API is a privacy-preserving tool that puts parents in the driver's seat allowing them to share their child's age range (e.g. 16-17) directly with apps.
Sounds like an adtech targeting demographic, not protecting children.
I'm surprised that there are so many still think that this is really about protecting kids. This is not an organic movement at all.
What a pain reading this blog post. It's about them complying with recent regulations, but they never mention it once: they word it so it sounds like they are doing this out of the good of their hearts. The words "law," "regulation," or "compliance" do not appear once, despite being the entire reason the post exists.
Also on the "privacy-preserving tool", technically apps get a bracket ("16–17") instead of a birthdate. But who holds the actual data? Google. The privacy improvement is against the developer only.
I hate it so much it makes my blood boil.
The internet as we knew it comes to an end and we are... complicit?
Judging from comments here it seems like some of HN readers do actually unironically take this at face value. Which is weird. Of all people, we should be ones to see what is this going towards.
Doesn't seem like most of the people on this thread actually read what they're planning.
It seems like a very good solution to me. It gives parents a simple solution to define the age of the phones user and a mechanism to allow apps to get an age range and tailor usage appropriately.
It does all this while leaving everyone else undisturbed.
Put the age range into http headers and you solve children accessing content via the web as well.
Who hasn't handed their phone to their kid at some point? This is a bad idea.
It would be far better if the user could set the age dynamically, as part of a capabilities set, and the browser could forward that data.
Then a person could hand over their phone to a child or a border agent in safety.
It's not like children can buy overpriced phones or tablets. You can force the stores to help setup up restrictions for their devices for parents that don't know how or want to. Then start doing massive fines and restrictions on websites or app stores that host unregulated apps.
If they can afford to buy them on their own, good for them.
You don't use age to decide what's appropriate; I don't mind if my kids see naked bodies. I do care if they see naked porn star bodies, and porn, although actual amateur porn with a range of body shapes is okay. Fighting is okay, but actual graphic bloody violence is less so (funkytown cartel video is no bueno).
Put that in an age range Google.
I think also something needs to be done to the companies that we know are targeting teens and children with tactics for addiction. Meta was found to have engaged in such tactics and nothing really happened to them
Will these be compatible with the Digital Credentials API in Chrome (https://developer.chrome.com/blog/digital-credentials-api-or...) or will websites be essentially locked out of friction-less age verification?
I'd be totally fine to solve this problem by banning children from the internet altogether. Not that I'd enforce this or anything. Just so no one other than the parents can be liable when things go wrong.
There's more and more evidence that internet access isn't healthy to have for children anyway.
What's the difference between an age check and a total identification check?
Besides the page header and footer, the post has 0 use of the word "Android", which feels telling of Google's approach these days.
This is actually a step in the right direction. I don't want to share my id and selfie with every stupid social media app/site. I would much rather allow parents to configure their children's devices to share their age.
Surveillance comes for us all.
> expand... worldwide till the end of the year
So at the end of the year they contract again?
Or should the headline read _by_ the end of the year?
Half the internet will be gated in the next two years. If you thought mfa for every silly little site was utterly annoying and social media was an invasion of your privacy then this next wave of digital surveilance will finally turn you into a tech luddite.
Global surveillance incoming.
Heard Google is also rolling out QR codes to get past captchas? Ie linked to a device that would now be identity linked too.
All seems pretty dystopian or to quote googles slogan - being evil
post refers to apps. how about browsers? will this allow browsers to block content based on the user's age ?
this just ends up with the movie rating system, gamed and easily ignored by most people
Just like every new Android "feature", the first thing that comes to mind when reading this is how will it work if you aren't logged in to Google on your phone. Am I supposed to give up and pretend it's normal to have to log in to an online account to use a personal computer?
"Providing a safe online experience and protecting users from harm is a top priority at Google Play." LOL NO. amount of malware says otherwise.
This should be in front page
Google preps your surveillance device for CBDC without your consent.
Title is: Delivering safer, age-appropriate experiences on Google Play
A question to the crypto nerds here - is there a way to prove that you are of age, but you can't be deanonymized even if the government, identity provider and the website itself collaborate to do it?
Safety!
They want your data.
YOU have become their product.
By the way, this also explains one reason why Google shut down third party access/applications recently on Android. Android (if one uses the Google software) becomes the ultimate spy tool on people. At the same time you see several countries force age sniffing on people - this is the beginning of the end of the free web. It will happen in various steps; the next one is Microsoft adding this to their software.
This is what I keep telling people
'Google will build the walls on their garden two bricks higher by end of year'
Age check is only pushed because this way you can tell humans from bots.
Prove me wrong
I couldn’t care less about children or about what is ultimately a parenting issue (keep your fucking kids off the internet). A problem that affects a subset of the population is not something that should be solved by subjecting the entire population to inconvenience. Just make it illegal to use the internet for under 18s or under 16s or whatever and let it be assumed that all users are of the appropriate age.
If I a child is on the internet without adult supervision, that’s a parenting problem, not an issue for the state or other people to solve.
The usual "but think of the children" tactic.
What's hilarious is how Westerners still think they're much different from China or the former Soviet Union anymore.
I don’t understand how are they even checking the age ??
This smells like Soviet Union. The next step will be a requirement to confirm your identity - trying to justify it with a wicked manipulation tactic "we need to know your are not lying when selecting your age". No one asked for it to begin with. Android is normalising totalitarianism and mass spying on citizens, one step at a time. This is a very bad feature and a very bad development.
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I'm fundamentally opposed to age verification because it usually leads to mandatory account creation no matter how privacy friendly the age verification process itself may be. It's already extremely annoying that, for example, on YouTube, you can no longer watch many videos without an account. Furthermore, the whole thing also reinforces monopolies. Once you've verified your age on one platform, the barrier to switching to another is even higher than before.
The only acceptable solution would be for apps and websites to simply include a recommended age. Allowing parents to configure their children’s devices to block services that require users to be older than the specified age or that do not provide an age rating. Once this were established, websites targeting all age groups would have a strong incentive to participate. Otherwise, they would suddenly become invisible to a large portion of their underage users.