To verify Or To Not Verify.....
Friday 7 December 2007
With companies and even governments being susceptible to massive security breaches with our personal information, should we trust more people with this information?
The new release candidate viewer has now started the beta testing process of age verification. Now is the time to watch the flood gates open and masses of people come flooding forth with angry fists and others waiting to sign on the dotted line.
Age Verification is a massive question on the internet. It opens a whole assortment of problems and many worried parents across the globe are concerned about their ability to protect their children. If I walked into a shop to purchase a bottle of spirits or a packet of cigarettes I may well be asked to verify my age. This, in theory, protects minors from such substances. In worlds where adults and minors mix, the ability to verify someone’s age is greatly compromised.
In a world where credit card details can be bought and sold on the black market, does this open a completely new world of ‘verified identity’ sales? We want to protect our children from the sexual predators on the internet of course we do, but will the new measures in age verification actually help?
Research states that credit card verification is a more economical and effective check for age. Kids can get access to their parents card information to side step this process, but surely passports and social security numbers are as easily attainable?
Asking people to verify their age does not cut out the sexual predator in our world it simply gives them clearance; it does not stop them doing what they want to do. Surely, age verification gives a potential false security. Reading research from the University of New Hampshire, in 95% of cases where an adult on the internet assaulted children, the child knew they were meeting an adult.
- Do we need age verification? Yes we do, we need to protect minors from such content.
- Is there a foolproof way to do this? No.
- Should something be done? Well that very much depends on whether doing something will actually fix problems and not create new ones.
I guess like many of us, I am going to sit back and watch this space, I am not going to verify at the moment. Age verification in principal I agree with but with global communities verifying age is a massive can of worms with a great deal of pit falls.
Many people are crying out for an official explanation of what actually merits the label of ‘adult material’ something LL has never given. People need answers and people need a valid reason to do something. Unfortunately, these reasons and answers are not coming from Linden. In typical Linden style they listen to the masses then do the opposite without true and proper printed logic
Sources:
Linden Blog
Ars Technica
Labels: 2nd life, 2ndlife, age verification, identity, rez, Rez Magazine, Second Life, secondlife, sl, trinity dechou, verify
I disagree with the 'we' have to do something about the minors on the grid.
I would rather say 'The parents' should take up parenting and not shove the blame to the community. There is no excuse for letting minors roam freely through the internet.
This age-veryfication is doing one thing.. that is saying 'You are guilty until proven innocent' and that is wrong.
There seems to be real childhunt going on on sl wich confuses me a bit.
Should we not try and illiminate the true problem and not the ones who are inflicted by them?
Ofcourse we should protect our children from such content, but is it ll's job to parent the world?
This issue exists as long as the world wide web is among us, surely they don't think they found the holy grale in age verification?
when they verify my age at 38 years, does this give them the insurance that i did not in fact used my dad's papers to do this?
I have no problem with age verification, as long as i do not have to lay my down my identity into the hands of people that i do not know.....thus not trust.
Would be a big issue if sony, nintendo and microsoft would all want age verification at any sale of a 12,16 or 18+ videogame.
Sure if that was doable than ebay would also have the means to check out every ad placed around the world to prevent scams.
Welcome to the real world, it inhabited sl a loooong time ago.
Wake up LL, do what you do best and leave the shit where it came from.
In my country, only a minority of people have credit cards, since debit cards are the predominant means for financial transactions. Actually we have two major and several smaller currency exchange services competing with each other who offer the purchase of L$ for those without credit card.
Unless every PC has a fingerprint reader or a DNA scanner, and we have a worldwide DNA database, I think safe age - or let's call it identitity - verification would not be possible.
Personally, I see two things:
Pre-teen children are not really interested in SL. There's games out there with better graphics, better action, faster speed. To pre-teens SL must appear incredibly boring.
Then we have the teenagers on the verge to adolescence. For these, SL might be attractive because they can experiment to be adults. Obviously, there are a lot of things happening in SL I would a 16 or 17 year old not want to see. But evenly obviously, those teenagers have enough energy and inventiveness to find ways to access the grid anyways if they really want it. And probably some things are safer to see or experience for them in SL, than in RL.
The main problem is with the parents I think. The SL main grid is for adults. There is a legal definition of who is an adult - in my country this is the 18th birthday. Not 18 yet? Sorry, no SL for you. However what I see more and more are parents who don't look. Or who don't care. Or don't have the knowledge. I can only say to those parents: take an interest in what your kid plays.
Basically, this discussion is repetitive. We had the same discussion about television. And no, I don't think it's OK if a 14yo watches a splatter movie on TV.
The task for parents is to educate their children, show them responsible use of media, try to teach them to be critical and conscious consumers.
But even then, the main grid is for adults. So wacth your login credentials, and have a trustful relationship to your children.
From the legal side of course LL needs to cover their asses, that's why age verification came in the first place. Let's not forget that LL is a US American company, and in that country there is a tendency to have the lawyers and courts sort out the stuff oneself has neglected. Instead of taking personal responsibility, it's easier to point a finger at LL and pass the blame on them. So of course LL had to do something, and the system they implemented is actually not THAT bad. And you can hardly blame LL that it does not really work outside the US. Or could you...?
