A friend of mine, who has recently made a account to post her stories has called me complaining that she now has to submit a photo of her face or her government ID to actually share her stories.

What the actual fuck, this is actually turning into a dystopian nightmare, this isn't about "protecting children" it's about taking away privacy.

Just got locked out of Bluesky until I "verified my age" and of course that required me to either give this KWS company a copy of my ID, a face scan, or the last 4 digits of my SSN.

How about no.

Deleted the app and that's that.

Emergency edit: DISCORD IS NEAR WORST CASE SCENARIO, CONFIRMED. They are using Persona, OWNED BY PETER THEIL OF PALANTIR. Spread the word AS FAR AS YOU CAN. GET AS MANY PEOPLE OFF OF DISCORD AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN. DON'T LET YOUR FRIENDS STAY THERE.

In the official discord press release, discord promises to run a scanner "in the background" to "estimate age" if you don't let them scan your face or ID. You know, for its upcoming international spyware loving investors. I'd suggest looking at the "Encrypted messengers" section of FMHY for alternatives. Also, if you have any personal recommendations that are reliable and/or pleasant, please share. Fluxer, Stoat, and Element (the Matrix chat app) also seem very promising. Thank y'all for your recommendations, open source software ftw. <3

Hillary Clinton championing age verification bills with JB Pritzker on stage with a Zuck/Bezos/Gates backed event

Hillary just posted this to Instagram:

“hillaryclinton Creating a safer and healthier digital world for children and families is important to me. I was happy to speak at the @commonsenseorg Summit with two leaders who are getting it done: Illinois @govpritzker and @michaeldtubbs, the former mayor of Stockton, California.

Legislation cracking down on addictive design, cyberbullying, deep fakes, and unsafe Al chatbots is a great start to keep kids safe online-and states are leading the way.”

Common Sense Media is a NFP foundation backed by The Gates Foundation, The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and The Bezos Family Foundation.

https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/common-sense-media/

The legislation she is describing sounds a lot like what HB5511 (currently in the Illinois House) purports itself to be.

And sure enough, now members of JB’s team have submit witness slips supporting the bill:

https://www.ilga.gov/Legislation/BillStatus/WitnessSlips?GAID=18&DocNum=5511&DocTypeID=HB&LegId=167486&SessionID=114

Along with other folks with associations to other neo-liberal tech organizations like the Center for Humane Technology, which has long been a big booster of KOSA.

Now there’s something I never thought I would say.

Persona and Mark Zuckerberg are very clearly lobbying the living fuck out of politicians across the country to pass this shit. But not because they actually give a shit about children…

No, they just want to have the ability to TRACK EVERY FUCKING AMERICAN DOWN TO THE WIRE!!!!

It is a blanket invasion of privacy and they KNOW that; That’s their goal.

We pride ourselves as a free country and yet ever since age verification laws first became commonplace (starting with adult sites), billionaires and CEOs have just asked for MORE AND MORE POWER over everyone else. It’s basically become a cycle for them: Get something that might give you more power >>> Find it to be really successful >>> You suddenly realize you could have more control >>> Get more control by any means necessary

They know exactly what they’re doing. The core values of America are being shattered before our very eyes by the ultra-wealthy and those in power.

Ok maybe I was exaggerating a little when I said I’m considering leaving, but I still don’t know how to fix this problem.

It’s called ”The App Store Accountability Act” and if this law gets passed it will require everyone to do an age verification before downloading an app. This is genuinely insane.

It's just bullshit.

I DON'T TRUST DISCORD WITH THIS RIGHT NOW.

I DON'T TRUST ANY OF IT.

SOMEHOW they'll find a way to go "Um. Actually. You suddenly can't use our services."

The EU, which I THOUGHT had privacy ethics, rolled out that chat control thing.

Oh and now they WANT MY FUCKING IDENTITY?

And microsoft is planning on making you age verify TO USE WINDOWS??

Edit!
Hello!
I feel a little guilty for just saying a lot of pretty basic things. I know subreddits like this one get this a lot, so I'm sorry for that. I didn't think this would get as much popularity as it did and I almost feel like I'm karmafarming now. Thank you to everyone for the comments.

Windows is really useful, because a lot of stuff is made for it, but oh well if it wants to overstep. Then there's alternatives to discord, which I may as well look into, Discord's main benefit simply being popularity, sunk cost fallacy, and familiarity.
I hope that the world gets its shit together in the next few months. I might actually have to switch to Linux anyway just because of the things Linux is good at. But those specifics are prooobably for a techier version of a later me

Today, while trying to enter a subreddit that has a NSFW mark, I got a message from reddit telling me to verify my age. This is weird because I don't live in a country with age restricting laws. I put my birthday and birthdate, but apparently that is still not enough to be able to use things freely. They want me to prove it with either my government ID or a picture of me. I am not doing it.

Has this happened to anyone else?

Edit: Sorry for any writing mistakes as English isn't my first language. Thank you to everyone who helped me understand why this was happening or took the time to comment. I am glad to know that I am not alone in this. I hope you all have a great day/night/whatever! 💞

Edit #2: When I said NSFW subreddit, some people just assumed it was porn but it is not. It's just a mature community that I now can't visit because of this stupid rule :(

Edit #3: For those looking for a solution, using a VPN might work. Someone suggested Proton on mobile and it works well, but it's a bit slow. I've also heard that the VPN built into Opera also works well, but I haven't tested it out yet. I am using Android, but I think it also works on iOS. Unfortunately, this is only a temporary solution that will probably get patched soon :((

As a wise man once said. “Well that's great, that's just fuckin' great man. Now what the fuck are we supposed to do? We're in some real pretty shit now man... That's it man, game over man, game over! What the fuck are we gonna do now? What are we gonna do?”

"The Federal Communications Commission is weighing rules that would require carriers and VoIP providers to collect a customer's name, physical address, government-issued ID number, and an alternate phone number before activating or renewing service. The practical effect, critics warn, would be the end of the anonymous prepaid phone. But the bigger concern they're raising is what happens to that data once every American's identity is tied to a phone line: a centralized, government-mandated record that touches domestic violence survivors, journalists, whistleblowers, and anyone who simply doesn't want their name permanently attached to their number."

Today, September 17, the European Commission published its proposal for the EU KIDS Act. In its FAQ section—which you can here—it makes some rather contradictory claims while presenting "privacy-preserving" age verification as the solution for mandatory age checks on social media. It also proposes restrictions on the ability of AI chatbots to retain past conversations with minors.

In my opinion, the proposal is a shameful piece of legislation. Technical safeguards may reduce the amount of personal data disclosed, but they fail to address the fundamental question: why should adults have to prove their age just to access a legal service?

Now begins a long—an extremely long—legislative process involving the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament. We successfully fought against some of the most problematic aspects of "Chat Control," and we can also thoroughly analyze and challenge this proposal.

Keep an eye on amendments, follow the legislative process, support digital rights organizations, sign relevant petitions, and contact your MEPs.

​I was literally in the middle of upgrading to Pro, entered my credit card info, and was ready to check out when a verification pop-up blocked me. So far, so good... until I realized what it was asking for: a live face scan and a picture of my government passport.

​The vendor Anthropic forces you to use for this is Persona. Who backs Persona? Founders Fund, Peter Thiel's VC firm. Thiel is also the co-founder and chairman of Palantir.

​Think about that setup for a second. Palantir's entire business model is mass surveillance and intelligence software used by governments, police, and the military to track and identify people. Persona is the identity pipeline processing passports and biometric facial geometry. When these corporate ecosystems intersect, you are feeding detailed biometric data directly into a network built around surveillance infrastructure.

​I know some of you will reply with "I have nothing to hide." But saying you don't care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is like saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say. Privacy is a fundamental right. Even if you think your day-to-day life is completely uninteresting, surrendering your biometrics to private corporations sets a dangerous precedent where accessing basic digital tools requires handing over your core identity.

​Some people will argue that the government already has our passports anyway, but that misses the entire point. In a constitutional democracy, there are laws, legal rights, and courts limiting what the state can legally do with your data. If politicians abuse their power, citizens can vote them out. But when you hand your biometrics over to a private corporate ecosystem, all democratic control disappears completely. You have zero say in how that data is stored, shared, or leveraged down the line. A private company answers only to its shareholders and profit motives, not to your civil liberties.

​Take a look at Thiel himself. He's an openly gay billionaire, married with kids, who is deeply conservative and literally gives talks around the world framing global politics in biblical terms about the Antichrist. He openly pushes back against the democratic institutions designed to regulate tech giants like him.

​And if you try to criticize these entities publicly, they play hardball. Look at how Thiel funded the Hulk Hogan lawsuit to bankrupt Gawker. Or look at the recent case in Switzerland where Palantir tried to legally force the independent magazine Republik to print massive counter-statements after investigating them. Luckily, the Swiss court shut Palantir down and press freedom won, but still.

​It really comes down to one question: Do you actually trust handing your face scan and passport to an identity system tied to Peter Thiel? If you do, go ahead and give them your data, but live with whatever happens down the road. If you don't trust them, draw a line and don't hand over your most delicate identity data just to use a chat interface.

​Am I pissed off that I can't use Claude or Claude Code anymore? Of course I am. It's currently the best tool out there for coding. But I'll just find an alternative. Competitors will catch up, open-weight models will get better, and the gap will close.

​And before anyone says "They need this to stop bots and AI abuse": come on. There are a dozen ways to prevent abuse, like rate limits, hardware tokens, device attestation, or fraud detection that don't require harvesting raw biometric face scans paired with government IDs.

​Rant over.

Everything slowly starts to ask for age with an ID or a picture,i ain't giving my personal info to no one they can shove their regulations up their ASS

Security researcher Paul Moore has demonstrated how the EU age verification app can be compromised in under 2 minutes with nothing more than physical access to a device.

By editing the app’s shared preferences file an attacker can remove the encrypted PIN values, reset the rate limiting counter to zero, and disable biometric requirements entirely.

The app then accepts a new PIN and grants access to the existing age verification credentials.

His earlier analysis of the open source code also revealed that the app stores NFC biometric facial data and user selfies as unencrypted lossless PNG files on the device.

Hacking the #EU #AgeVerification app in under 2 minutes.

During setup, the app asks you to create a PIN. After entry, the app encrypts it and saves it in the shared_prefs directory.

1. It shouldn't be encrypted at all - that's a really poor design.
2. It's not cryptographically tied to the vault which contains the identity data.

So, an attacker can simply remove the PinEnc/PinIV values from the shared_prefs file and restart the app.

After choosing a different PIN, the app presents credentials created under the old profile and let's the attacker present them as valid.

Other issues: 1. Rate limiting is an incrementing number in the same config file. Just reset it to 0 and keep trying. 2. "UseBiometricAuth" is a boolean, also in the same file. Set it to false and it just skips that step.

sources on X. search by yourself because bot keeps deleting this if I post the links. Check Paul_Reviews and Pirat_Nation accounts.