Taken from the readme of the app on github:
The current release provides only basic functionality, with several key features to be introduced in future versions, including:
App and device verification based on Google Play Integrity API and Apple App Attestation
Additional issuance methods beyond the currently implemented eID based method.
These planned features align with the requirements and methods described in the Age Verification Profile.
There is an issue opened to remove this as it’s basically telling us that to verify our age in the EU an American corporation has the last word, making it not only a privacy nightmare but a de-facto monopoly on the phone market that will leave out of the verification checks even the fairphone (european) with /e/os.
Guess I live somewhere in Asia according to my VPN from now on. Fuck this shit.
cause nobody ever bypassed play integrity
Ban age verification. It’s an accessibility and privacy nightmare, besides the free speech implications.
There’s no reason why you can’t just have the browser for device say that the user is 18 or not.
Parents wouldn’t have to do anything after setting up their kids devices and putting a pin on their own. The setup is literally three buttons:
Who is this device used by:
- Adults only (no age restrictions)
- A child (all age restrictions active)
- Both (restrictions with optional unlock PIN)
This whole debacle is a massive attack on freedom and is completely asinine. It incorporates no ideas from industry and only props up sketchy companies that make money from this specific implementation.
This tbh, age verification SHOULD be a parenting issue not a state mandated issue. If the state wants to make it an issue it should be on the parents to at least be a trusted party.
So, if a 12 year old appears on the door of a strip club, we don’t check for his ID, we let him in because, after all, it’s a parent topic and if the parents let the boy out, he can for sure visit a strip club, right?
This isn’t a physical place, this is the internet. Parental controls exist specifically for this situation. Also at least personally, my parents did not let me go anywhere solo when I was 12…so 12 year old me would’ve never made it to a strip club.
This meeds to be put on a large sheet and be put on any large building we find, in my opinion. People need to wake the fuck up. There are easy solutions! We don’t have to force our beliefs onto our neighbours.
Not only countries have right to be sovereign, this counts for families as well. Family should be able to decide their rules on their own and rise their children how they want, in my opinion.
Of course, a kid should be told somehow, how to get help, if their parameters are monsters.
Well – there are more age levels than that, but yes, I agree.
For content restriction online? What are they? Unless you mean different ages in different areas, in which case that’s still just two levels – parents would be the one setting it so presumably they know what that age is where they are.
At least in my area movies and games are rated in 5 age groups. I’m pretty sure that’s the case in most parts of the world. We’ve got different rights to buy things for different ages, as well.
Government mandated enshitification, yay
So, let me summarize this, maybe i miss something:
a) This is a Module/Reference Implementation not the finished app b) It is in the earliest stages of development c) it is opensource, someone could provide alternate means for device/app verification via MR d) There is no mention about “THIS IS THE ONLY WAY WE WILL DO IT”, that part is a straight out lie!
Nothing prevents nations to implement other verification methods the googles API.
So, what are we raging about here? People insulting developers for doing their work? People using an issue tracker like twitter? People, that do not read properly?
Yes, the italian implementation already is tied to google, and there should be some push back, but that is NOT the fault of this project.
uhm alternate roms are mostly without play services… sweet its OSS but doesnt change anything. play services is still used as backend.
Again, this is not an official app. It is a reference implementation.
You can not, and will never be able to, download this app from the App store.
who is talking about app… don’t you get it? grapheneOS etc MUST then have google play services installed for it to be implemented! It excludes other systems without this services! But it is one of the reasons to switch to custom roms to get away from it!
Why must they have installed that? For what if there is no app?
Google is making it more difficult for custom roms with newer Android versions anyway, so something like this comes just in time. As if Google will now implement an extra api so that it could communicate with it without installed play services… the websites will communicate with the play services servers and on cell phones the play services will then have prerequisites and also communicate with the servers. there will certainly also be a check between OS and browser/website.
at the end of the day, it’s about comprehensive full surveillance, and custom roms etc. are a thorn in europe’s side. chat control can also be put on the agenda… possibly as early as October.
Like what? Dude! There is no app you’re can install, so there’s no requirement for Google APIs.
I think you have no idea what you are talking about, what the issue is, and why the scope of the project matters.
Let me try to summarize this:
EU policies require the ability to verify COUNTRY SPECIFIC implementations to be verifiable. The reference implementation linked above uses a Google API for it.
Countries, that implement the actual apps are free to offer other verification methods then the Google API.
Italy has an app currently, and this app requires this stupid Google API, yes, but that is not the above project.
The websites will never communicate with the play services! They communicate with the APIs of the authorities issuing the state ID’s. The App must be verifiable to protect the user! We have a state ID app in Germany. It is open source and I compiled it for my Linux desktop and graphene OS based phones. Guess what, yeah, it works.
What many are missing here: the purpose of the verification and the actual authentication workflow.
Also, let me just cite the readme of the project:
This is an initial version of the software, developed solely for the purpose of demonstrating the business flow of the solution. It is not intended for production use, and does not yet include the full set of functional, security, or integration features required for a live deployment.
But we are all going crazy because some minimal example code relays on Google APIs …
Please stop pushing such utterly wrong and confusing bullshit.
I miss when elected government officials were supposed to represent the wants of the population, and not the wants of the highest bidder
V.P.N.
DSGVO etc? Who cares… 🤢🤮
edit: “Who cares” from the point of view of the EU, because the EU itself is once again ignoring the DSGVO with this solution.
Read the ducking docs
The Age Verification (AV) android app is part of the Age Verification Solution Toolbox and serves as a component that can be used by memberstates, if necessary, to develop a national solution and build upon the building blocks of the toolbox. […] This is an initial version of the software, developed solely for the purpose of demonstrating the business flow of the solution. It is not intended for production use, and does not yet include the full set of functional, security, or integration features required for a live deployment.
