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Comment by ulbu | Hacker News Reader

alcohol, cigarettes?..

It's different. You show an ID card to a human if you don't look old enough. They look at it and return it. The ID card doesn't get scanned or tied to all your future recreational drug purchases - you don't have an account or a trail that identifies you.

When uploading ID documents, your account gets tied to your real world identity. That's not a precedent the government should be setting, because private entities having an excuse (the law) to require identification erodes privacy, and because in the future other services could be required to ask for an identification, too. Yes, it's the slippery slope (aka "boiling the frog") argument, but that's how laws that erode privacy evolve - step by step.

Now it's account for social media, then it's porn sites, then it's forums where you might see porn or discussions on suicide, drugs or anything deemed morally hazardous. They might require an ID just to view the site or require the site to not make it public. If (or "when", if we don't oppose such laws) enough countries mandate something like this, most sites will likely require an account for all content, regardless of where the person is located, as otherwise they'll likely have to prove that they've not only geolocated the IP of the visitor, but checked that they weren't using VPNs, Tor or similar services.

As for using zero-knowledge proofs and similar technology to make it less infringing on privacy - I very much doubt the government (any government) to implement this with 100% privacy and security.

> Now it's account for social media, then it's porn sites

Actually, in lots of places it was porn sites first, but...

> they look at it and return it. The ID card doesn't get scanned

Actually in Australia, IDs usually do get scanned and stored. About the same time I was getting too old for clubs, they were starting to introduce ID scanners. You line up, hand over your driver's licence or passport, they slap it on a wall-mounted scanner, the scan goes into a database and in you go. No scan, no entry. Nowadays I think they just use phone/tablet scanners.

Parent of kids old enough to go clubbing, and have been to a few venues in the city myself recently because of that. Have also worked on this tech in a small capacity in government.

Yes, handheld is now used. If you use the digital licences app on your phone in NSW/QLD the licence details are picked up by a QR code and cross verified via an auth API with Services NSW / TMR QLD. You are also checked against a database of banned patrons, against court ordered exclusions, and police issued exclusions. If you use the physical licence, an extra step of ID —> licence details extracted occurs, then the same process is followed.

I agree that people will lose their identity online if age checks become normalised. That’s not been the case with the club and inner city alcohol venues checks.

Aren't those things organised the same way Apple face id is organised where the app itself can't get the biometric information, they just get a yes or no? That would be stupid as hell.

In Finland the government has allowed banks to offer (2fa) identification services to those that are using their services. If I sign into a government site using my banking ID, the bank gets paid for providing the service. To my understanding none of my actual ID information is transferred to a party wanting to identify me.

The Linkedin 'validate your identity' was the first time i was asked to actually take a picture of my passport/scan the chip. I'll refuse until they'll allow me to identify with my banking ID.

This must be an exception, and not a rule. I've lived in Melbourne for years, and have never had my drivers license scanned.

In some bars and clubs in various countries it's common for the door staff to take your ID, hold it up to the security camera, then return it before you can go in. I've seen it in France and the UK. The reason I've been given is so that anyone who causes trouble can be identified for potential prosecution.

This has been the case in Canada for 20 years

In the US they also get scanned and stored.

> As for using zero-knowledge proofs and similar technology to make it less infringing on privacy - I very much doubt the government (any government) to implement this with 100% privacy and security.

I wish they did, that would be huge.

They scan IDs at every gas station I've bought a lottery ticket in now for at least a year or two. US.

Yes, but those are in the physical world. [1] In digital realm, having to verify your ID has way more consequences. My passport has been leaked and I have a “quick cash loan” in my name as a result of that.

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[1]: Tangentially, those are trivially circumvented in many countries. When I was a teenager in St. Petersburg, we’ve used a “duty free delivery service”, which (I suppose) just stocked liquor at the duty free shop on the border with Finland, and then sold it. Not sure how legal was the core premise (probably not), but we used it because their couriers didn’t even pretend they need to check our passports (definitely illegal).

In many countries, alcohol is available in grocery delivery services. Couriers happily leave your order at the doorstep even though they are supposed to check your ID. In many other countries, even buying in-store is possible (e.g. Japan, where in any konbini you can just press a button on screen saying “yes, I’m 21”).

So stupid. An image of an ID should never be a replacement for the actual ID for future use. I hope that loan was easy to dispute.

I hope it will be! The creditor says something along the lines of “you’ve confirmed your phone number using SMS code so it must be you; no, we won’t tell you which number we’ve sent the code to, that would be privacy violation”. I’ve tried everything I could do online and nah, nobody really cares.

I think I still can dispute it in court, but for that I’ll have to go back to Russia. (I could hire a lawyer, but the amount is like $300.)

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