Comment by Bender | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Bender | Hacker News Reader

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It's a bit late for that, given that around half of US states already have some kind of age assurance mandate.

Perhaps late to solve this globally but parents can still install parental control software if they so desire and can still intervene locally to prevent sharing data with 3rd parties. At worst this means small children might not get to visit social media and other assorted sites and I am fine with that. I think a number of parents would be fine with that as well.

Sites can voluntarily label as some do. It just means that parental controls would have to default to blocking everything until approved and while sub-optimal maybe that's what people will have to do in order to avoid the evil pattern of sharing data with all the websites that will ultimately leak, or "leak", be sold, stolen, etc... Good parents will not participate in the evil patterns of sharing their children's personally identifiable information.

When the PII of children is ultimately shared with evil people the children once adults will resent their parents for not protecting them.

- To all parents here, your children have no idea what risks are out there including devious companies that want their data. They will one day be adults if all goes well. Protect your children as corporations and governments will not. They will thank you when they find out all their friends data was shared, leaked or otherwise abused forever.

I'm not following you here.

Certainly parents can install parental control software, but what does this have to do with children's PII being shared with sites?

Just so we're on the same page, the way AB1043 works is that the OS determines the user's age and then shares the age bracket with apps. No PII is shared with sites (this is not to say that the age isn't sensitive, but it's not PII as usually regarded). Is your concern here that sites get access to children's information because children visit certain sites regardless of legislation? That's a real thing, but it seems mostly orthogonal to age assurance.

Certainly parents can install parental control software, but what does this have to do with children's PII being shared with sites?

The parent can block or just never approve all the sites that require PII.

but it's not PII as usually regarded

We will never agree here. All the companies I worked for financial considered any attribute of the person to be PII, even their IP address. We were audited very strictly on this. If a users age was disclosed to a third party without their written consent that was a contract violation and came with severe monetary penalties. Parents should expect this to be the minimum standard. It's their children, not the corporation or governments children.

Thanks for your explanation. I understand what you're talking about, but this all just seems to be entirely orthogonal to age assurance mandates, which are largely about controlling which content and experiences minors engage with, in many cases regardless of what parents want.

Again, this isn't an endorsement of these mandates; I'm just saying that what you're proposing here doesn't address the objectives that policymakers who are in favor of these mandates are trying to achieve.

doesn't address the objectives that policymakers who are in favor of these mandates are trying to achieve.

Oh trust me, I get it. They and I will never align. I know I am beyond beating the dead horse. It's gone from bone dust to micronized dust to sub-atomic particles to sub-quantum particles at this point. That poor horse will never be forgotten. Perhaps it is an illness on my part but I will find a way to bring this up every time until the year 2150 after which point this will be the least of anyone's concerns.

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