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Age Verification

So the Online Safety Act 2023 finally came into force in the UK a few weeks ago. One of the Act's provisions is to force certain online businesses to check the age of the people accessing mature content. This content includes the obvious (porn) to the suspicious (direct messaging).

I suppose the thinking behind that is to prevent underage users being sent this content directly, but it's not a big leap to wonder if censorship is a factor. After all, the current government has recently used powers to proscribe in a highly questionable manner.

Yoti

I've known this was coming for quite a while, so I set up a Yoti account on my phone. They seem like a relatively trustworthy organisation to me, and are a member of the Proof of Age Standards Scheme (PASS). PASS is a UK government certification that was originally introduced for physical documents. Any card bearing the PASS hologram should be accepted as proof that the person is the age specified. They have an app too.

Setting up the account was a piece of cake and surprisingly fast. Adding a suitable document is as easy as taking a photo, and it verifies in a matter of minutes.

I was feeling pretty smug because a lot of websites and apps are using Yoti as their age verification service. "I'll just open the Yoti app to verify, and it'll be easy," I thought. WRONG. Despite being shown as a valid option in their "🌽orn Nightmare | P*rnoPete" promotional video, it never appears for selection.

For example, here were the four options that Microsoft offered for their Xbox gaming service. As you can see, it's "powered by Yoti":

• Photo of your face
• Scan a government ID (and face)
• Credit card check
• Mobile provider check

Out of the four, I decided that options 1 and 3 were the least worst. So I tried the face photo option, which was a right faff. I was told multiple times that it "couldn't be sure I was a real person". Great. It worked in the end, but this could've been avoided with the app option.

My Thoughts

I approve of the aim of age-gating mature content away from the youth. I was part of the last generation to grow up without constant internet access, and so the first time I saw hardcore porn was when I was 18. I think this is a good thing because it meant I understood that it was a performance for the camera, rather than a set of genuine intimate moments. However, I don't agree that all porn is bad, and I remain confused at the mismatch between the age of consent and this.

Gore is all bad though, and I bet there will be no age-gating to access that. It's just not considered a serious problem, and I'd say society doesn't really care. Sex is considered shameful, but the photo of a murdered politician can be shown on the front page of a newspaper without any problem*.

I also have concerns about the data collected by these third party verification services. Just because a provider says they'll delete your data immediately after, it doesn't mean that they actually will. I'm choosing to trust Yoti, but that's based on blind faith alone. All it takes is a bit of insecure cloud storage with some data stored for "debugging purposes" to leak. Other providers are explicitly saying that they are saving and selling this information; that's why I haven't verified on BlueSky.

At any rate, I'm not sure this law is going to be very effective at its goal. Necessity is the mother of invention as they say, and a number of workarounds and bypasses are already out there. There's nothing more necessary than a horny teen needing to bust a nut.

* I won't name the paper, and I'm struggling to remember who it was. It was at some sort of conference, and the poor man lay dead in the background while a crazy man with a gun shouted angrily. I believe the photographer won an award for the picture.

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