I found this Apple Insider page with more information and an actual description of how it works, from someone doing journalism instead of soliciting donations and subscriptions: https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/02/25/how-age-verificat...
It's going to take some more searching to find an article that shows what age verification looks like for newer Apple accounts. According to that article if you have a long-standing Apple account and/or a credit card in your name in Apple Pay it might be enough to confirm you as 18+.
An article about the age restrictions should at least have some supporting evidence, or at minimum some screenshots like the article I linked.
I can confirm that is the case.
Just sad that Western citizen are throwing hard earned privacy rights so easily out of the window. Giving in to the most trivial emotional blackmail.
The article somewhat glosses over it, but you can buy a PASS age verification card at the local post office for 15£. That one is widely accepted and it doesn’t contain unnecessary information that might cause trouble if it leaked (like for example a passport does). And 1 in 3 adults (according to the article) have an Apple account that’s old enough so that they will automatically be unlocked, no further documents needed.
The article strongly accuses iOS of being a walled garden, but I don’t see that as a particularly strong argument after iOS being locked down for ~20 years now.
And as a parent, I know that if child protection is opt-in, there’ll be a huge fight about it, because some other parents won’t activate it, which then makes the situation unfair for the kids. I’d much rather have it on by default so that all kids are treated the same.
You must have a very warped perspective of social reality if you think it should be acceptable to force every adult to show their papers before they can do anything in modern society - and all that just so you can avoid your parenting duties. And I say that as a parent.
And yes, the PASS card has name and photo. But no adress, no social security number or secret ID or equivalent. If your PASS card leaks, nobody can create a bank account in your name. If your passport leaks, they can. That's the difference in privacy, seen in action.
Different families can choose to raise their children differently. Please let other parents make their own parenting choices for their own kids.
There are parents who are more strict with their kids than you are in ways you don’t agree with. I guarantee you wouldn’t be happy if they were lobbying to force your kids to obey their chosen set of rules because they didn’t want “inequality”.
You don't need to worry about "lazier". I don't think that exists in the context of your concerns.
Or are you worried about your kids getting an unfair advantage over unrestricted ones?
If your passport leaks, they can [create a bank account]
It should be a total non-issue for photocopies of passports to get leaked.
Also, kids understand perfectly well that different parents have different rules.
I don’t think the government or Apple should be responsible for protecting you from mopey teenagers by blocking free internet access for everyone just so that it “is fair”. Are you even hearing yourself?
What if your government decides that anything LGBT is taboo for kids[1]? Or that informations about say, ongoing genocides, is deemed too graphic for kids. Won't that also increase the blast radius to people who didn't bother justifying their age, even though they supposedly also have the right to vote?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Parental_Rights_in_Edu...
Ignoring the existence of peer pressure and calling parents lazy is a failing of individuals.
Parents should be there to teach rather than just restrict. Kids will need to learn how to recognize and deal with peer pressure at some point.
Also Apple definitely benefits from peer pressure generally. Their devices are seen as status symbols, the dreaded green bubbles, maybe more. I wouldn't expect them to do anything to actually improve things in this area.
> And as a parent, I know that if child protection is opt-in, there’ll be a huge fight about it, because some other parents won’t activate it, which then makes the situation unfair for the kids. I’d much rather have it on by default so that all kids are treated the same.
If you cared about your children, you would be against this. Otherwise you're fighting against your children's future; their privacy, their sanity, their ability to participate in a functioning democracy.
One can always get a dumbphone without this.
Rinse and repeat until you break
It’s also getting kind of silly to pretend that these laws are going to stop those other kids’ parents from simply age-verifying their phones for them. These fantasies where the government passes a law and suddenly every parent and child in the country settle into the exact same social norms are just that - fantasy.
However, I fundamentally and ideologically disagree with your views on the matter, and I think your views are incompatible with a free society with checks and balances, and frankly, draconian.
That’s a strange argument. The government or anyone doesn’t have a mandate to ensure everyone has the exact same experience. Differences in upbringing are normal. I didn’t have a TV growing up while most of my friends did. It might have felt unfair at the time, but it wouldn’t justify the government forcing my parents to get one -> overreach.
If there's one thing the UK internet has taught me is that some brits will throw a fit for every minor inconvenience they face
"Dole appoint at 10am 30min from home!?" Means it's an unsurmountable challenge from them as they might be hangover from the previous day and what do you mean I have to pay the bus fare to get there?
Of course the privacy point stands. But their complaint is not about privacy, is about the effort
I am all for the ban of social media. But I am afraid that it will give us more government meddling and interfering on our devices. And that Apple and google are “forced” to do it. They of course have their own gains.
A “ban” is literally government interference.
Pick a lane.
Problem solved, and with minimal government meddling.
So yes, you are right that we will see our democracies embrace more and more control over us citizens, limiting our rights, while our governments emulate China. This is unfortunately because the west believes that being a leader in technology is essential to retain its powers.
I really do.
I don't know if even right-wingers like this age verification crap, maybe they put up with it from Republicans so they can vote against abortion and I put up with it from Democrats so I can vote for abortion.
Of course, if you vote for a third party, you're spoilering your side. Every country is a group project run by underpaid people to try to please millions of uninformed haters. Still better than dying of dysentery, I guess.
“The west” is now the global north, it’s mostly 3rd world countries dying of old age and going bankrupt in the process.
Moving that to the phone makes it look cleaner, but mostly just pushes the mess into a layer people have even less control over.
Not long till complete authentication of the human at every level is required to use a computer.
I’m not pleased with this move, but its implementation has me wondering. I barely keep up with anything these days so I was taken by surprise after I updated. And, probably due to the decrepitude, I was annoyed for a few days that my phone had been nerfed and I had to roll back, before trying probably the first thing any younger person locked out would.
I’m curious, if there’s anyone who hasn’t verified a spare account, if they would point their phone at things? It might take a moment, and there’s no real feedback until the phone accepts your evidence. People have said it takes other people’s credit cards and ID, but I’m wondering if it’ll accept a pet passport too, or really what the limit is.
While I'd love this hard-line approach, as it might make other countries think twice, the stockholders probably wouldn't love it.
> Laws like the Online Safety Act 2023 apply to websites and online services — not to entire phone operating systems.
Doesn't this go back to companies like Meta lobbying to push the responsibility to the OS instead of taking it on themselves? I read they did that in the US, I can only assume they did it in the UK as well.
Frankly, I'd rather have Apple qualify me as over 18 one time, and pass a simple boolean to a site vs having to upload proof (an ID, photos...) to every website I want to use. This may be the lesser of two evils.
I will vote for any party that promises to rewind this crap, I don’t care what other policies they have. Enough of the nannying.
Part 5 is too broadly written: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/part/5
'internet services' is extremely broad and could include apple's own appstore, icloud services, maybe even their browser could be considered software acting on behalf of a provider.
Now of course they could be stretching, but OFCOM has their own overview that digs into just how broad they consider the legislation: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/onli...
With all this being said, I do think Apple probably could have fought it and even if they had to leave the UK market, they'd still be fine. They rely on China and South Korea to manufacture their devices so they would not be fine without these markets.
Brits are masters of malicious compliance.
My favourite example of this was when Thatcher passed a law banning the broadcast of Sinn Féin. The BBC responded by dubbing the audio with actors’ voices. So you would watch the news and see an interview with Gerry Adams, but you would be hearing an actor speak his words, meaning the BBC were complying with the law by not broadcasting his voice.
I will edit this to say, since I'm sure people are out there who will make this point: yes, I read the article. I disagree with it. "Not required by the OS" Well that isn't going to matter much when Apple gets hit with a big fat fine for "allowing" underage users on social media.
I see "Big Brother Watch" has their own narrative to push though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_age_verification_in_the...
> The law is about platforms that deal in pornography, self harm, etc
So...not exclusive to Apple.
The narrative that people have a right to privacy and we should prevent government overreach?
I think that’s what Apple is banking on. They sell privacy as a feature of their products, and I’m grateful for that.