This new "privacy" law will require that all operating system providers must start collecting your birth date every app you install will need to ask your OS provider for that information. It's whac...
There is way too much sensationalism around this law. All this law calls for is an OS-level “Are you over 18?” button, the kind that’s been all over the internet for decades. See the Ubuntu mailing list discussion for a possible technical approach. There does not appear to be any requirement for age verification beyond that of the system administrator, and reporting is by a total of four age brackets, so even the privacy impact is limited.
The benefit of something like this is that age can be enforced by the system administrator rather than the user, so parents can set their kids’ computers with an accurate age bracket. Meanwhile, all of us with just a single user can set the highest age brackets and move on with our lives. Now, as the CEO of System76 says, kids will find ways around it, and we shouldn’t discourage kids from controlling their own computers, but he says “If there is any solace in these two laws, it’s that they don’t have any real restrictions”.
But that same article notes that New York has a proposed bill S8102A that is much more draconian. California’s law is a minor nuisance, while New York’s bill sounds like an outright danger. Please focus on a real threat, especially considering it’s much easier to change laws while they’re still only bills.
This is the exact same thing as the law that makes products world wide say this product contains materials that may cause cancer according to the state of California. It’s a nothing burger. It will be a very minor inconvenience and a joke that people harp on about for decades to come.
But this is still worth fighting. It’s a bellwether for more restrictive age+identity verification laws, and those should not exist in the US. The gov’t shouldn’t have any say in what I compute the same way they shouldn’t have any say in what I discuss using the mail. This is a clear step away from that and it’s important to make that clear to lawmakers now so they don’t use this as evidence the populace is ok with something stronger.
Honestly to play devil’s advocate, California’s law almost is the lesser of 2 evils, if software can ask the OS for age verification then maybe companies will stop rolling out actually invasive verification, and if the OS verification is handled by the sysadmin then it satisfies both sides, people that want to have age verification, and people that think it should be left in the hands of parents as a parenting role. Me personally? I’d rather we have no verification at all but that isn’t the path the world is moving down.
How does this work with ephemeral servers though? How does this impact a piece of software I’m self hosting and sharing online? Am I going to be fined potentially thousands if my website can’t process the operating systems age bracket signal?
I agree a lot of the coverage is sensational but there are also gaps and nuisances involved the expose people to litigation for no real societal benefit. It also feels like a very slippery slope to more invasive age verification online.
I find it funny specially since brazil passed a law in august that does that too but explicitly does not allow self declaration of age as verification, pretty much no one talks about
it is a trojan horse of a law (like most of these), doing great things such as trying to ban loot boxes and ban abusive ads targetting minors, the way it seeks to do that is comical
There is way too much sensationalism around this law. All this law calls for is an OS-level “Are you over 18?” button, the kind that’s been all over the internet for decades. See the Ubuntu mailing list discussion for a possible technical approach. There does not appear to be any requirement for age verification beyond that of the system administrator, and reporting is by a total of four age brackets, so even the privacy impact is limited.
The benefit of something like this is that age can be enforced by the system administrator rather than the user, so parents can set their kids’ computers with an accurate age bracket. Meanwhile, all of us with just a single user can set the highest age brackets and move on with our lives. Now, as the CEO of System76 says, kids will find ways around it, and we shouldn’t discourage kids from controlling their own computers, but he says “If there is any solace in these two laws, it’s that they don’t have any real restrictions”.
But that same article notes that New York has a proposed bill S8102A that is much more draconian. California’s law is a minor nuisance, while New York’s bill sounds like an outright danger. Please focus on a real threat, especially considering it’s much easier to change laws while they’re still only bills.
The real threats always starts as a nuisance.
This is the exact same thing as the law that makes products world wide say this product contains materials that may cause cancer according to the state of California. It’s a nothing burger. It will be a very minor inconvenience and a joke that people harp on about for decades to come.
Yes, there’s definitely worse out there.
But this is still worth fighting. It’s a bellwether for more restrictive age+identity verification laws, and those should not exist in the US. The gov’t shouldn’t have any say in what I compute the same way they shouldn’t have any say in what I discuss using the mail. This is a clear step away from that and it’s important to make that clear to lawmakers now so they don’t use this as evidence the populace is ok with something stronger.
Honestly to play devil’s advocate, California’s law almost is the lesser of 2 evils, if software can ask the OS for age verification then maybe companies will stop rolling out actually invasive verification, and if the OS verification is handled by the sysadmin then it satisfies both sides, people that want to have age verification, and people that think it should be left in the hands of parents as a parenting role. Me personally? I’d rather we have no verification at all but that isn’t the path the world is moving down.
How does this work with ephemeral servers though? How does this impact a piece of software I’m self hosting and sharing online? Am I going to be fined potentially thousands if my website can’t process the operating systems age bracket signal?
I agree a lot of the coverage is sensational but there are also gaps and nuisances involved the expose people to litigation for no real societal benefit. It also feels like a very slippery slope to more invasive age verification online.
I find it funny specially since brazil passed a law in august that does that too but explicitly does not allow self declaration of age as verification, pretty much no one talks about
law 15211 https://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2023-2026/2025/Lei/L15211.htm
it is a trojan horse of a law (like most of these), doing great things such as trying to ban loot boxes and ban abusive ads targetting minors, the way it seeks to do that is comical