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Comment by reorder9695 | Hacker News Reader

In real life the situation is different. When I buy alcohol, someone looks at my drivers licence, does not make a copy of it, forgets it quickly, and cannot tie it to other information about me. As soon as it's online and it's copies, I can't tell what happens on anyone else's servers. I don't want any company knowing my actual name and location, then that can be tied to more data, which is what Google etc have been trying to do for years but this would just completely fast track that. I would in theory be fine with something where it never leaves my computer, but that is obviously impossible.

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Not sure if you've bought alcohol lately, but at most large grocers near me, they're scanning licenses now instead of just verifying the birth date - and I'm pretty confident those scans aren't just checking the birthdate and then deleting all record of the interaction..

Not sure where you are but no one has ever done that to me. I usually would go through self checkouts so someone just comes over, takes a quick look at my drivers licence, and puts in their employee id into the machine to authorise it.

I'm in the midwest, but at several large chains with hundreds of locations, even at the self-checkout when you buy booze, it flashes the little 'attendant needed' sign, the person comes over, scans their badge, takes your ID to do a 1 second look, and then scans it on the same barcode reader you use for your box of cereal.

Pro tip: those scanners probably don't work with passports, so a human must still eyeball your passport to verify that you're old enough.

They can probably just deny you service at that point.

They can deny you service at any time, but it's unlikely they will do so if you present a valid ID, even if it's not machine-readable. Not every driver license can be easily scanned, so in that respect it's no different from a passport.

So then this is an easy problem. Issue liquor stores a terminal. Liquor guy checks licenses. If you're an adult, the clerk presses a button. A public key is generated and uploaded to a public list. You get a private key that shows you're an adult and is not tied to you. Regular laws that apply to liquor also apply to this private key QR code... You cannot give it to a minor or sell it without a license.

To view adult content, use the code to sign a thing. Content company sees the signed code, verifies against the public list and sends the content.

Privacy preserved, no adult content to kids... Easy.

A lot of the proposals don't involve you sending your drivers license or "other information" to anyone. The site in question asks you to verify with a trusted third party (usually a government entity), and that trusted third party only provides then with the end result of the validation.

> which is what Google etc have been trying to do for years but this would just completely fast track that.

Excuse me? They have done that for years. There's nothing to "fast track" here. Big Tech already implemented surveillance.

How many of those proposals do not have a government-mandated app as a spider in the middle of the web, which is aware of all the apps and websites you try to visit which ask for validation?

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