Age verification: I’m scared!
May 8, 2007 4:20 pm
It’s not that I’m underaged. Nor that I’m paranoid. But combining Laetizia’s post ‘and I dare say the concern of most Europeans: handing over personal data to a company in the US‘ and this and this and this and this and it suddenly doesn’t sound like a great idea anymore. At all.
*notes down: hang out in PG areas more. just to get wont to it.*
20 Responses to “Age verification: I’m scared!”
We swedes probably are to used to show ID card all the time to really care. You can’t uses a credit card with out showing you ID. But this is stating to feel a little scary. And somehow it seams to be an other way to get us into getting a premium account.
This is a great post, Vint! I was concerned before, but the links you’ve posted — the ones in English, at least :) — have convinced me that I’m really not interested in going down this path.
(Although as a Neko of the Third Reich, I though you’d appreciate the idea — “Papers please! SHOW US YOUR PAPERS!”)
According to the Lindens, the ‘Adult’ restriction won’t automatically apply to sims that are now ‘mature’, it will be up to the owner of the land to identify the activity on the property as ‘Adult’ (of course, this means ‘Sex’ — it is still legal in some states to act like a grownup, even in the presence of small children).
I don’t really think my SL fun will be diminished much if I can’t hire an escort or see (somebody else’s) naked boobies, so, I’m gonna take a pass on the whole age-verification thing…
I don’t care how many times they try to tell us that the information won’t be “stored”, there is no way I will ever provide a driver’s license or social security number or passport information online - or at least not for entertainment purposes!
Will be very interesting trying to access places on the grid that are “Mature” but without “Adult Content” - I am guessing I’ll soon be flying around bumping into more floating red No Entry text barriers.
And will they start policing the difference between those places? What if no one assigns their parcel as Adult Content and just leaves it as Mature?
As soon as I heard “Social Security Number” from the Linden Blog, I flipped. This is going a tad too far. And no I woudnt trust such company.
Codie
I wonder how many of us that now say ‘No way!’ are going to give in eventually. ;/ Or do phony identity papers come cheap nowadays? ;)
I just don’t see why they can’t let an European company store (they are storing it, all right) the data on European servers. We have laws that protect such data. (Or at least, more laws that protect such data.)
If anybody wonders why I’m stating this, I’ll attempt at translating the last article I’ve linked too:
CIA MONITORS INTERNATIONAL MONEY TRANSFERS CENTRAL DATABASE’S DATA
It seems the american governement has had to data concering almost all international money transfers for almost five years. The organistation that world wide is responsible for this money traffic, the company Swift, located in Brussels, made short after 9/11 it’s complete database accessible to the CIA, the american secret service. The americans claim they need this cooperation with Swift in their fight against terrorism. Data from Swift presumably led to at least one arrest of an AL Qaeda superior.
We can call this news controversial: especially the americans are renowed to think strongly about bank secrecy bla bla bla… … the activities of Swift also concern transactions between ‘legal entities’ (sorry, not sure about translation here) in COUNTRIES WHERE THE AMERICANS HAVE NO JURISDICTION!!!!
There is no external control over this project. When the CIA wants to look into data about a certain person or certain company, an ‘administrative summons’ which does not need any jugde/law court/… is enough to get hold of that data. With such summons the CIA had simple access to the biggest part of the of transactions Swift processes each day. The + thousand banks that are using Swift’s services weren’t told about this. The American governement said that controlling Swift’s data is ‘a legal correct and justified use of [her] jurisdiction’, but if the international business world thinks the same, is to be seen. The uncontrolled use of the data files will anyhow severely harm Swift’s - until now, very good - reputation and it’s without doubt the organisation can expect damage claims from it’s members/clients. But if the american governement will change policy, that can be doubted.
Another step to make Second Life much more closer to the real one in an attempt to control more efficiently the accounts. However LL wants us to trust them they won’t store any identity data, they don’t tell us which third party company they will be using …
Furthermore, there will be 3 kinds of parcel : PG, Mature and Adult. Mature being more restrictive than PG, Adult more restrictive then Mature… then what ? Pornographic ?
Content is either Adult or not, this new idea about identity verification is clearly not well thought and looks like more an external pressure over LL to include it rather than an improvement.
Credit Card access is enough to proof we are adult, I don’t understand why we would have to provide more, having just to lock Free Account outside Adult sims.
i’m also against this, they are totally going overboard. i’m sure a lot of people are gonna give in but i wont cause i cant anyways. even though i’m an adult i havent doen the test to get my driving license since i dont have the money to buy acar anyway. i also dont have a passport since i dont travel and theres no way i’m gonna give my social number to a company, they already have my credit card i’m not giving them more then that.
i just hope they wont block the sandboxes to me XD
Well, Tiana, me pondering over this actually started with sandboxes. Message from a private sandbox I’m a member of that went sort of like (I didn’t keep it, it seems): ‘Will everybody be able to give age data, as I’m planning on listing this one as ‘adult’?’.
Luckily there’s still Sndbx2 and +10000 unused prims. *Kisses RaR*
if they do block sandboxes to me, i’ll probably just buy my own land and make it in my own personal sandbox. thats going to fix a lot of problems
I see a lot of people who still beleive that credit card information is sufficient proof that you are an adult. Regrettably, that’s not true.
In the US (and presumably, other countries) it is possible to purchase an anonymous prepaid debit card, either Visa or MasterCard. In fact, it’s probably the safer way to go, if you are using credit cards online.
This is why you can’t assume that just because a person has payment information on file, they’re old enough to have a credit card.
So people rather not give their credit card info on the internet (I use paypal as much as possible), but they are willing to give their social security numbers? *scratches behind her ears*
ps. Did I already say ty for last night? ;)
I’d rather give credit card info than SSN or driver’s license or passport info, sure. But it doesn’t sound like they will only accept credit card info as verification.
Too bad they couldn’t use a company like Idology, for example, which promises to verify age based on name and address alone, and which I am sure would alleviate any liability from LL.
I have not visited any other website which required anything other than credit card related info (name, address, dob, credit card number) for any sort of verification. This is a first for me and it seems a bit like overkill to provide that much personal information in addition to what is asked for any other site which only allows adults.
Fortunately, I am already in SL and already have land, so I won’t need to worry about what to do or where to go if everything else becomes off limits.
And Tiana, you can always use my place as a sandbox if you need to. :-)
The very idea of goodd ole “dokumenty kontrol” gets right up my nose. Mind you I live in a communist country where you can buy a new identity any day down the street corner for a couple of bucks. In a contrary way the idea of the Lindens tying themselves into complicated but pointless knots sort of amuses me. Maybe we could set up a new business supplying fake ID.
And who will protect the people who are claiming to be a third of their real age. I know a few……
lol.
Bhella, could you get me one that actually states ‘Vint Falken’? ;) As for the people saying they are younger then they actually are, that’s not punishable our frowned upon. :p
hehehehehehe
Vint Falken ID coming up. Although you may look a little unusual. My ID man seems to work on a stock European photo of a 54 year old woman. Seems to work. Could be a real winner for you.
Price-wise a fake ID card seems to run at 15 fake DVDs or 30 fake receipts.
57 year old woman: she does has white skin with grey spots, does she? =d
15 fake DVD’s: the price you produce them at, or the price we in Belgium buy them at? =d
Y7 my dear, 90 odd US cents
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