AGE CHECKS ARE A TOTAL INVASION OF PRIVACY

The Take

Marcus Webb · Surveillance & Tech Privacy

The author conflates two separate problems and lands on the wrong answer. Age verification itself isn't the villain—the *mechanism* is. We've known since at least 2003 (COPPA consent logs) that collecting biometric or document data creates catastrophic liability profiles. Companies aren't implementing age checks to protect kids; they're doing it to manufacture compliance theater while harvesting identity data for secondary markets. The real move? Cryptographic age assertions tied to existing payment rails—Visa, PayPal—that verify age without exposing identity to the platform. Apple's approach hints at this. But that requires regulatory spine we don't have. What actually happens: Facebook collects your driver's license scan, stores it encrypted (theoretically), and that database becomes target zero for state actors and organized crime. I watched contractor systems get compromised for less. The privacy invasion isn't incidental; it's the business model wearing a compliance costume. The article's right to be angry. It's just angry at the wrong layer. Demand architecture that doesn't require surrender of identity documents. Everything else is security theater subsidized by your data.