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Age verification (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by ransomwarelettuce@lemmy.world to c/science@lemmy.world

Lately there has been a lot of controversy about age verification and it's implementation in places such as UK and US.

The main critic to this mechanism is due being done through facial recognition or a government ID which are privacy invasive.

So here is my question as someone who comes from IT, wouldn't it be possible to create a device which just gives out true or false depending if the person is of age, given some kind of piece of DNA (hair, blood, nails) ?

I known there is carbon dating, but from what I understand is a bit of complicated process. The human body however shows it's age visually and I would be interested to know if genetically there are some signs as well that could be somewhat used in a automatic process.

Again I come from IT, just curious about the implications and your takes on the problem.

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[-] AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

The solution is really, stunningly simple:

Your gov issues official documents about you (driving license, passport, id cards...). They know your age.

Your gov is also a trustworthy institution since all those cited above are official documents that anyone, anywhere will accept as valid.

So here's the solution: the gov creates a digital certificate in which the only stored data is your age, or even less: your adult state (as a boolean; if over 18 = TRUE).

The gov issues the cert on demand to any person after presenting any valid ID to prove who you are (it can be done online, with only the id verification being done in person). The cert is bound to your device, and if you change phone, you must migrate it so you can't have it in two devices.

Since the issuer is a trusted authority, the cert can be used as a proof of age in any site needing it as the only thing they need is to read the cert and confirm the auth of the issuer.

And as the cert is only a boolean status saying if you are underage or adult, there is no privacy concerns as the one checking your age won't know anything else about you.

There, you just solved a "huge" problem in a simple way and with no privacy concerns.

[-] rustyfish@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Shit. This is actually genius and really hard to simplify further. It also never will be implemented this way by my government.

I don’t know about the UK and the US. But Germany is in the middle of leaving the Fax era…30 years behind the rest of the world. I am right now waiting for a letter from my health insurance provider so I can use their app. It’s a week overdue.

[-] TCB13@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Yeah that the obvious straightforward fix, but that's not the point. They want to have some online system that really tracks your ID checks and where you're checking it. :)

this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2025
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