Hacker News Reader

Comment by valicord | Hacker News Reader

Haven't checked the others, but at least for the skin cream bill, the text explicitly lists "a date of birth entry or checkbox verifying age system" as sufficient, so the outrage about privacy seems overblown.

Of course this raises questions as to what is the point of requiring verification that doesn't actually verify anything, but that's an entirely separate problem.

View on HN

> Haven't checked the others, but at least for the skin cream bill

if you did check the other two, you'd notice that they're much more restrictive.

from the NY bill, apologies for the all-caps but it's in the original [0]:

> "IDENTITY VERIFICATION" SHALL MEAN THE USE OF AN ON-DEMAND SELF-PHOTOGRAPH TO VERIFY THE OWNERSHIP OF A PERSON'S GOVERNMENT-ISSUED IDENTIFICATION;

> "LICENSE VERIFICATION" SHALL MEAN THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY TO VERIFY A PERSON'S GOVERNMENT-ISSUED IDENTIFICATION;

and the one in WA [1]:

> For the purposes of this section, proof of legal age includes any of the following officially issued identification that shows the purchaser's age and bears the purchaser's signature and photograph:

0: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/A3323

1 (PDF): https://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2025-26/Pdf/Bills/Se...

I did check the others later, the WA bill only requires IRL verification, same as purchasing alcohol, so it also doesn't really fit the theme of the article either.

2/3 examples being heavily exaggerated is a pretty bad look for the author (even though I agree with the article sentiment in general).

What's the point of anytl of this though?

Like what public interest is served by having a date of birth entry or a checkbox for 'verifying' age?

To me it serves no public interest as it's functionally useless and it will only serve as a thin end of a wedge to normalize more egregious requirements.

Oh, I agree, it seems completely useless as written. I'm just saying that it's no more of a privacy violation than Steam asking for your birth date (which somehow happens to be January 1st, 1900 for a shocking percentage of the population) to watch a video game trailer. I assume the point is virtue signaling.

Likewise the dietary pills bill only requires the ID to be verified either at a retail point of sale or when the online purchase is delivered, so there doesn't seem to be any invasive data collection required.

To be clear: I'm strongly against any laws that require uploading government ID to sketchy websites, but at least 2 out of the 3 examples listed are not this.

One could argue it's the first step of the slippery slope process. First you introduce a checkbox as a "non-intrusive way" to for age verification, knowing full well it's useless. Next step is you say "Ok, we clearly agree there is a need for age verification, we all voted for the checkbox but kids are lying so we must put into place a system that cannot be gamed. Think of the children!"

If we don't trust the legislative and see them as malevolent entities with their own agendas unaligned with those of their constituents, then, yes, a checkbox opens a path for further abuse.

If we trust the legislative to have a modicum of common sense and don't try to invent a technical solution to a non-technical problem, then a warning "what you're going to see is not for the younger audiences" might be a reasonable compromise.

And it's a shame we live in a world where the former doesn't sound completely nuts.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com