roundabout-host

Google started to lobby by using a dramatisation: "if it is easy to reject advertising cookies, the whole Web advertising industry will go extinct!"

I agree to prohibit them in schools, but at home it should be the family's decision.

They are doing something which is not a solution but can fake being a solution, so that the masses will accept it. An actual solution would be to regulate these social media, to prohibit addictive and manipulative algorithms.

There are experimental mobile platforms, and they work fine. They won't appeal to the mass-market but there's really no reason to disallow them.

Exactly. The app is only inclusive if it is accessible over a standard protocol (Web) without "attestation", so that it works for any platform. If I release a GNU/Linux distribution tomorrow, I should be able to use the app on it with only some work on my part.

It requires a government-authorised "age verification" "app", but it does not require that it is accessible through standard protocols, so that it can work on any platform. In practice, the governments will only make it available for Android and iOS. Plus, you cannot have a free OS providing "attestation"; "attestation" is incompatible with root access and modifying the OS.

The German implementation allows it for some uses, but not for "age verification". The demo does not account for the fact that other options may exist.

What you can do with the ID app, you can also do on paper (if not with a Web service), except "age verification".

It is possible for e-signatures and similar variants. However, there is no sign that the "age verification" will support this variant. If you go to the demo <https://cinema.ageverification.dev>, no option is given other than the Android/iOS app.

So it seems that the app is only an alternative in the case of government portals, but it is not an alternative for "age verification".

"only if you choose to share your personal data with either Google or Apple"?

Maybe it depends on how you frame it.

> Social media is destroying children's brains! Do you want access to be delayed until a certain age?

> Do you want children under a certain age to be banned from social media, which means that you will now have to give your ID, only with Android or iOS?

Since it requires Android or iOS, Google/Apple can gather the same data too.

I don't understand. Even if you run GNU/Linux, when you access a restricted website on it, you will have to scan a QR code with the Android or iOS app. <https://cinema.ageverification.dev> is a demo which shows that.

They are.

Android derivatives are not considered enough, because they will not be Google-attested, so the app will refuse them.

The spec mandates mobile versions to exist, and not PC ones. While a PC version can be provided, no government will do that, because they will do the bare minimum.

This is a problem, but not the only one. The biggest one is that the phones in question are locked and deny user freedom. I would not be content with an European "alternative", but which is as locked as iOS.

In the thread you will find many examples of national implementations which do require attestation. It was removed from the README as a PR measure, but in practice the specification does not prohibit it, so national implementations will still use it.

It used to say that, it was removed as a PR measure, while in practice the national implementations (as you do not use this app, but a national one) require it, because the specification only mandates Android/iOS versions to be provided (it allows others, but no government will do so), and it does not mandate them not to have "attestation".

Well, the plan is for it to be the only one. And even if it isn't, what's the alternative? Persona again? No thanks. They could have helped and made an alternative version of this system which used the ID chip plugged into a desktop PC, but they intentionally won't do so.

They probably think that they do not use "social media" either, so it does not affect them. But elders are not the only category. In any case, it is fundamentally wrong to be forced to use a specific platform, American or European, mobile or desktop, for Internet service access.

Children die from wrongly-prepared food, thus we should only allow people to eat at McDonald's from now on! /s

In fact, it requires attestation: even if you install Google Play on some Android in an emulator/container/VM, on an alternative Android distro or in a rooted device, the app will not accept it.

The "app" could be a good solution, if it didn't require attested Android or iOS. It could, for example, have me plug my ID chip into my GNU/Linux system and expose it with a standard protocol. That would be no problem. The problem is that they do not want such a way.

In any case, I think that age gating would not be needed if the platforms were regulated to remove addictive recommendation algorithms.

Regardless of whether you personally use Android or iOS, I think that we can all agree that it is not right to be forced to use a specific platform in order to access almost any Internet services.