Papers, Please!

Introduction

Today, many corporations and governments are opting for an ID verification before a user can access a service. What gives?

What’s Happening

After the UK introducing age verification by ID to the masses under the Online Safety Act. It’s supposed to “protect children, as well as adults, from illegal and harmful content, mis- and disinformation, etc.”. Big goals, for what is a simple ID scan.

As for how the identity verifications are handled: There are no regulations! There’s no one standardized system, and users may not even know if, or for how long, their personal data is stored. They may not know where it’s stored, either. The complete lack of transparency is apparent.

Despite all this, Ofcom, the organization tasked by the British government with enforcing age verification on platforms, is already at work, checking and regulating platforms.¹

Is It Even Functional?

No. As there is no single way of implementation, it gets to be lackluster. Companies simply opt to hand over users’ personal data to random third party companies and/or individuals. This also has triggered a worry in increased happenings of identity theft. In terms of bypassing ID verification systems, one can bypass some designs without even trying.²

Aside from this, platforms like Spotify have also started enforcing age verification. What?

What’s in it?

Censorship and mass surveillance, of course. With enforcement this strict, a government will be able to cherry-pick its choices of propaganda to its heart’s content. There already are multiple instances of this having happened, too.³

Roblox is Going the Extra Mile

The personal data violator,⁴ and platform full of predators,⁵ Roblox, is probably the corporation that got most inspired from this new trend. Previously, Roblox kept some games and the voice chat feature behind an ID verification. Now, they’ve even begun restricting the text chat feature. This has already been implemented in some countries like Netherlands, Australia, and New Zealand.

Roblox continues to ignore its users, begging for functional moderation, and restrict its playerbase.

Instead of staying in this doomed platform for any longer, players can seek alternatives like Godot. Also see RFD, which allows you to host a local instance of a Roblox game.

Developers who want to migrate to Godot can also check out this.

Small Update: Users who have made a purchase on Roblox gets less restrictions for publishing and updating their games, so there’s technically an official (albeit niche) way of “bypassing” the ID verification.⁶

The Alternative to Dysfunctional “Solutions”

What’ll only work, to keep children away from the plague that is the internet, is education. Instead of making users jump through hoops and give grounds to censorship, increasing awareness among those entering parenthood, and gradually introducing teens to the internet instead of giving them unlimited access, is the solution.

The inherent issue with this idea is that it completely conflicts with a government’s ideals, as higher rate of literacy might mean more pushback against an attempt in censorship.

• Privacy