I understand the concern but then to make this available for adults you now have to provide proof of age to companies, which opens up another can of privacy worms.
Children who are smart enough to get access to a given vice without getting caught are more likely to be mature enough to be able to cope with that vice.
It seems a bit silly to think security abstinence is the solution.
Kids with low parental supervision who steal uncle Roy's marlboro are more likely to be able to cope with tobacco addiction?
Do you have any reasons to think this might be the case? Studies, research, a well thought-out article?
We're just optimising for kids with shitty family at this point.
I only disagree with the just-so notion that kids who have an Uncle Roy are somehow better able to cope with the consequences. Ability to access something is (IMHO) pretty uncorrelated with the ability to cope with the consequences.
"As with smoking, alcohol, sex, drugs etc
Children who are smart enough to get access to a given vice without getting caught are more likely to be mature enough to be able to cope with that vice."
There are at least two problems here. The one I've focused on first that you seem so keen to dispel, is an assumption that there are smart kids overcoming a challenge. 'Roy' is an extreme, but there is a whole spectrum of low-oversight conditions that are likely to lead to kids getting access to alcohol, tobacco, drugs, having sex etc, which are nothing to do with smartness or challenges and are much more to do with shitty parenting and neglect.
Then there's the second problem. Let's focus on tobacco but I believe it's likely to hold for other drugs - even if we allow that children getting access to tobacco are 'smarter' than those who don't figure it out, and are overcoming various obstacles, that doesn't actually imply that they'll be better able to deal with the consequences. Just like how a high IQ doesn't always mean someone is necessarily good at crossing the road safely or tieing their shoelaces.
In fact there's a variety of research about nicotine's effect on developing brains and how the earlier people are exposed the more likely they are to be more addicted for longer. This is the opposite outcome to the original claim, kids who start earlier are in fact demonstrably less likely to be able to 'cope' with the vice.
The whole claim is nonsense.
[0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3615117/ [1] https://www.tobaccoinaustralia.org.au/chapter-6-addiction/6-...
(edit - I'm not making specific claims about cybersecurity or access to tech here, I just think the analogy is pretty seriously wrong in itself)
Let's consider the four combinations of the two variables here. You have dumber and smarter kids, and worse and better parents. The kids with the worse parents will have access to the vice regardless of whether they're dumb or smart, but the kids with the better parents will only have access if they're smart enough to figure out how against parents actively trying to prevent it. Therefore the two of the four quadrants with smarter kids can get access but the dumber kids only can when they have worse parents, implying that two thirds of the quadrants with the ability to do it are the smarter kids.
> even if we allow that children getting access to tobacco are 'smarter' than those who don't figure it out, and are overcoming various obstacles, that doesn't actually imply that they'll be better able to deal with the consequences.
That's assuming the way they deal with it better is by trying the drug and then somehow not getting addicted rather than by choosing not to try the drug to begin with even though they could access it if they wanted to, or otherwise making more measured choices if they do decide to try something, like finding a source more likely to be providing the expected amount of the expected substance instead of who knows how much of who knows what. Or just hesitating a while so their first time comes at an older age.
But only one of those involves overcoming anything.
And unless you have information on the relative sizes of those quadrants, it’s meaningless in terms of the overall picture and being able to confidently assert that access to such contraband allows you to draw any inferences about intelligence whatsoever.
And the rest appears to be some serious mental gymnastics to avoid the point, which I don’t believe for a second was meant to encompass “children who are smart enough to get access to do a thing but don’t actually do the thing because they’re so damn smart”. Nor do I believe that 14 year olds who find a willing drug dealer are more likely to take sensible precautions than their peers, having proven their smarts by finding one!
The whole premise is laughable.
All imperfect solutions, but they slice original huge problem into much smaller chunks which are easier to tackle with next approach.
I think the framework here is to have community driven age verifiers( i recall there is an EU effort for digital wallets which besides it's bad parts has some of these good parts) which can verify ages for people and link them to( local biometrically encrypted) devices for pinning. This would be privacy preserving. The only downside is a mandate for all devices have a built-in hardware biometric encryption like a finger/face print so phones can't be just(used) with these apps installed.
The verification part is a job that could be done by all the teachers and coaches and ofc parents. Any one verifying identities would be cryptographically nominated/revoked by a number of more senior members of the community. A prent always get the right to say ok for their kid ofc but so could teachers or legal guardians..
We(legally) need a mandate for smart devices to have local device only biometric verification. The law should be to have these apps follow device app store protocols.
Given how current parental controls work, kids are not getting access if their device is under parental control (the default for open web access is off). So Facebook still won't see any child-locked devices, even before this ruling. My guess is that this ruling applies to parents who aren't making sure their kids get access only via child locked devices.
> Surveys by Britain’s tech regulator, Ofcom, find that among children aged 10-12, over half use Snapchat, more than 60% TikTok and more than 70% WhatsApp. All three apps have a notional minimum age of 13.
Trying to approach it from the direction of websites determining if you are an adult is a privacy nightmare and provides a huge attack surface. (Which is what the government wants--the ability to monitor.) Flipping it over is much, much safer--but fails the real mission of exposing dissent.
(On-device security, the credential of the adult is loaded onto the device but not transmitted anywhere, it can only be obtained locally. The device simply responds as to whether it has a credential loaded. Bad guys are unlikely to want to sell such devices as the phone could be traced back to them.)
And the parents can select a strict child lock, or permitted but copies forwarded to the parent.)
So even if 95% of kids have responsible parents locking down access, there will still be this 5% that will continue to drip horror stories that motivate knee-jerk regulation.