age verification
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Instagram is testing an AI face-scanning tool that can verify your age
Instagram is testing new age verification methods including asking followers to vouch for your age and even using AI that can estimate your age.
UK revives plans to force age verification for adult content
The scheme has been deemed unworkable ever since it was first proposed.
California is suing Juul for allegedly targeting minors
California is suing e-cigarette maker Juul. The lawsuit alleges that Juul targeted underage Californians with its marketing and sales practices, failed to warn consumers of their exposure to chemicals linked to cancer and birth defects, failed to properly verify the age of its customers and violated the privacy rights of minors by retaining their email addresses even when they failed age verification. Attorney General Xavier Becerra, Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey and the County of Los Angeles announced the lawsuit today.
Australia wants to verify porn users by scanning their faces
Australia has proposed another in a series of zany attempts to control the internet. This time, the government wants to do facial scans to confirm a user's age before they can watch porn or gamble online, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. Then, the government would verify the user's identity using another proposed scheme called the "Face Verification Service."
UK’s porn age verification law to go into effect on July 15th
Following numerous delays, the UK's age verification law for pornography sites will finally go into effect on July 15, according to the government. Under the law, people in the UK will have to go the extra mile to prove that they are over 18 years old in order to access online pornographic material. Checking a box or typing in your birthday will no longer suffice; users will have to enter their credit card, passport number, mobile phone number or buy an age verification pass from a local shop.
Snapchat admits its age-verification system doesn’t work
Confronted by the UK's Parliament, Snapchat admitted its age verification process doesn't keep users younger than 13 years old from signing up. That's not exactly a big secret. Users are simply asked to enter their birthday, which could easily be fudged. But Snapchat's admission is significant.
Liquor stores will laugh in the Face.com at your fake ID
Okay, it's only three months 'till your glorious twenty-first birthday, so near, yet technology has to come along and rain on your parade. You might think you look legal, but if claims by engineers at Face.com are to be believed, they're not having it. Using the firm's face recognition technology and a new API, they believe it can determine age based on a photo. The technology is open to all developers who might want to add age restriction into their apps, although it's unlikely that you would want to rely on this as your sole method of verification. The algorithm takes a number of factors into account, such as face shape, and skin smoothness, so at the very least you'll be able to find out if your t-zone routine is working. Hit up the more coverage link, where there's a free iOS app to learn the harsh reality.
Wizard101 has a banner year amidst chat issues
Wizard101 isn't at the top of everyone's list for free-to-play games, but that seems to be an odd oversight. Sure, the game isn't going to appeal to everyone with its highly stylized and kid-friendly atmosphere, but 2010 has apparently turned out to be a high-water mark for the title. According to an official release from KingsIsle Entertainment, the site's visitors were high enough to rank it at number eight out of the top 250 sites gaining in visitors over December, and the US registrations alone soared to over 15 million players (not counting European registrations). And let's not forget that the game was voted as the best family game of the decade by our readers. The success isn't without the occasional misstep, however, with the game's recent 18+ chat troubles as a prime example. Several players mature enough to take part in unfiltered chat found themselves locked out of the chat by an unannounced change to the way chat systems work, one that filtered out players who had stopped paying a monthly subscription. A full rundown of the situation has been posted by company representatives, with the announcement that accounts verified as being eligible for chat will be allowed to chat once again. Wizard101 players who've moved to a free-to-play account should be happy -- as should anyone cheering for the game's success moving into 2011.
Second Life moves to 1.23, opens adult continent, allows more content
Linden Lab has released the new viewer, bringing Second Life up to 1.23 a few days earlier than expected, off the back of a very short release-candidate cycle. The new viewer brings three things with it: The new Adults-only continent (formerly Ursula and now Zindra), user-verification by documents or payment-status, and a new Adults-only content rating that opens up Second Life to more extreme sexual and violent content.
Second Life adult content updates: Viewers, namechanges, grannies and grade-schoolers
The 1.23 Second Life viewer with the necessary support for Adult content is still being rushed to meet a June deadline, the exact reason for which seems a little unclear. There's some outstanding issues with the viewer release-candidates, but it seems fairly low on actual showstoppers and looks likely to make an official release in the roughly one fortnight remaining. Definitions for the content ratings have been finalized, though they show little noticeable deviation from Linden Lab's originally proposed drafts. It appears that all the changes have been simple explanatory wording changes. The PG rating holds a couple of surprises, though.
Upcoming viewer changes for Second Life adult content
Thanks to a piping-hot, fresh build of the Second Life viewer, we've been able to get a better look at the upcoming content controls that are due in the next major release of the Second Life viewer. As expected, there are now three content ratings available (though it is uncertain as to what their final names will actually be. Using "PG" as a content rating, for example, has legal issues): PG content, Mature content and Adult content. While it hasn't yet been determined exactly what content will fit into each category (actually, we barely have any idea about the existing content categorizations half the time), the actual usage and integration looks pretty straightforward.
Kirk says children at risk in Second Life
The Chicago Tribune is carrying a story about Congressional Representative Mark Kirk of the district of Illinois. Kirk alleges that Second Life "is a risk for children, who could be sexually exploited" and has written a letter to the US Federal Trade Commission, urging them to issue a consumer alert to warn of this danger. We're pretty sure that Kirk isn't going to get that consumer alert.
How many times do you have to prove it?
One of Second Life's (non-sexual) child avatars -- let's call him "Joe" for the moment -- used Linden Lab's beta Age Verification system to forestall any issues of being possibly suspended for being an underage user. Unfortunately, "Joe" was subsequently suspended after being abuse-reported as an underage user. Subject to an age-check, he had to provide copies of assorted government-issued identity documentation to Linden Lab's office, where, satisfied that he had proved he was an adult user, his account was re-enabled. Unfortunately for "Joe", it doesn't end there.
Linden Lab: No stated plans to improve verification outside USA
The Age Verification (or Identity Verification, as it seems like it might be called internally again) implementation for Second Life has been a fairly fraught process so far, with no clear resolution in sight. With allegations of dubious respect for privacy on the part of the verification provider, questions about the actual nature of the service being provided, difficulties closing the deal, policy changes about whether it will be mandatory or not and whether you will be able to tell if someone is verified or not, doubts about the effectiveness of the actual restrictions, that the system seems to be easily cheated, that Linden Lab doesn't appear to trust that successful verification is sufficient, and a slew of issues and open questions (not limited to the fact that it may be quite likely unlawful for you to provide your identity information if you are outside the USA due to assorted anti-terror laws and agreements) ... well, it hasn't been a smooth road in the almost-a-year since this started.
What will happen to Second Life in 2008?
I generally speaking suck at predictions, but there are some for Second Life that it will be interesting to see what comes through. I'm going to divide them into the technical, the social, competition and the external "big users" categories, basically because that is how they occurred to me.This is obviously going to be quite long, so read on under the fold.
Peering inside - looking back at 2007 [UPDATED]
It's been no less a tumultuous year for Second Life in 2007 this year than any previous year, frankly. There are a few standout items though. This isn't the list that anyone else might make - We might completely skip over one of the things you see as standing out as a huge impact, based solely on that we don't actually think it was that big a deal in the scheme of things.
Second Life: rolling restart, Wednesday 2 January
Linden Lab (who seem busier today than they did yesterday - but hey, it's an odd time of year) have scheduled a rolling restart of the Second Life grid for Wednesday morning, 2 January starting sometime between 10AM and 11AM SLT (US Pacific) - though, in our experience, a rolling restart almost never actually commences on time. It's not said what's being done, exactly. Some sim crashes fixed, and 'fixes related to age-verification' - which honestly could mean anything.
Aristotle's age verification not good enough for LL?
The Second Life Grid Grind's Jamie David got an email from Linden Lab for his alt account, Agelock Short. It appears someone reported Agelock Short for being underage, and the account was suspended pending an age-check, as is commonly done in these situations. The problem is that Agelock Short was already successfully age-verified as an adult through Linden Lab's age-verification arrangement with Aristotle/Integrity. That apparently, is not good enough.
Age-verification restriction on parcels - what does it actually do?
We've taken a long look at the way Second Life beta age-verification works (or fails to) as far as the age-verification provider Aristotle/Integrity is concerned. The next part ultimately is how does age-restriction actually work on the Second Life grid? With the aid of a test subject and the latest release candidate, we took a look at the age-verification based access-restriction flag to find out exactly what it does.
Aristotle/Integrity: El Da de los Muertos
Second Life users have found a way to deal with Aristotle/Integrity's age-verification service (who's non-USA failure rates seem to be awfully high, and who's data may be a touch less than comprehensive) and a straightforward and easy way to get themselves verified. Famous people and dead people. Also famous, dead people. In fact, people are having more success verifying their accounts with the credentials of the deceased than with the living.
