Canada’s proposed Bill S-209, which addresses online age verification, is currently making its way through the Senate, and its passage would be yet another mistake in tech policy.
The bill is intended to restrict young peoples’ access to online pornography and to hold providers to account for making it available to anyone under 18. It may be well-intentioned, but the manner of its proposed enforcement – mandating age verification or what is being called “age-estimation technologies” – is troubling.
Globally, age-verification tools are a popular business, and many companies are in favour of S-209, particularly because it requires that websites and organizations rely on third parties for these tools. However, they bring up long-standing concerns over privacy, especially when you consider potential leaks or hacks of this information, which in some cases include biometrics that can identify us by our faces or fingerprints. […]
That is an utterly terrible idea, that is going to lead to the very opposite of a healthy or thriving democracy. That is going to lead to 99% of politicians quiting, and the very, very few who don’t care about the constant surveillance will effectively be governing unopposed most of the time.
It’s also a humongous waste of tax payer money, it would cost hundreds of millions a year to host hundreds of 24/7 life streams.
Also, what about politicians who have children ? You wanna publicly livestream them bathing, or dressing their underage children ? Or do you just want to ban parents from being politicians all together ?
No offense, but sounds like the type of idea you come up with and that feels really clever when you’re high AF, and then falls apart as soon as you spend more than 5 seconds sober thinking about it. Like circular runways.