Reading the new checks that might come in due to the Online Safety Act in the UK and this is actually bullshit
[Image Transcript:
And how will I prove my age?
There’s a number of methods a site or app might use to ask you to confirm your age. They might do this check themselves or use another company to do the check. These methods include:
Facial age estimation – you show your face via photo or video, and technology analyses it to estimate your age.
Open banking – you give permission for the age-check service to securely access information from your bank about whether you are over 18. The age-check service then confirms this with the site or app.
Digital identity services – these include digital identity wallets, which can securely store and share information which proves your age in a digital format.
Credit card age checks – you provide your credit card details and a payment processor checks if the card is valid. As you must be over 18 to obtain a credit card this shows you are over 18.
Email-based age estimation – you provide your email address, and technology analyses other online services where it has been used – such as banking or utility providers - to estimate your age.
Mobile network operator age checks – you give your permission for an age-check service to confirm whether or not your mobile phone number has age filters applied to it. If there are no restrictions, this confirms you are over 18.
Photo-ID matching – this is similar to a check when you show a document. For example, you upload an image of a document that shows your face and age, and an image of yourself at the same time – these are compared to confirm if the document is yours.
End Transcript.]
Not only is this such a fucking breach of privacy, but this is going to hurt adults in vulnerable and abusive situations. Some adults don’t have bank accounts or credit cards or even a fucking phone. I’m one of them. I could not give half of this information even if I wanted to. What the fuck is this. Fuck the UK government. This isn’t going to protect kids, this is just going to hurt adults, and I know full well when they say “sites that allow pornography” they’re going to be going after sites that have huge amounts of queer content, like tumblr and Ao3. Queer kids are gonna lose their fucking communities because of this shit. Abuse victims are going to lose online support systems because of this.
I’m genuinely fucked off about this, and worried about whether I’m going to lose every single one of my online friends. Anyone in the UK, please email your MP and sign this petition. It needs to reach 100k signatures to pass through Parliament.
I’m only hoping the backlash will be big enough for them to stop implementing these measures.
We want the Government to repeal the Online Safety act.
Anything we Yankees can do to voice our displeasure at this? This absolutely is violating and it's creepy. It absolutely will be used as a test run for implementing something similar here if it doesn't get loud pushback, and even before it does, we all share the same Internet, so it will, in some way, affect us even across the pond.
As far as I know, the best thing non-UK people can do is simply share the petition around, because it’s not possible for anyone outside of the UK to sign it (otherwise the petition can be deemed invalid). But definitely keep your eyes on American laws, because it’s likely they’ll attempt to implement them there too. The UK itself is basically copying what Australia has been trying to do with their under-16s ban.
If you're in the UK, please sign the petition and start calling and emailng explaining that you don't support fascist laws in your country. Because this is fascism. It's tracking and keeping lists of what people do on the internet so that vaguely written laws can be interpreted to punish people for not being the right sort of people.
If you're not in the UK, please reblog and share anywhere you can.
