Here likely none of us is happy about this, most of us are likely angry in fact, but we’re past the point of no return and age verification is coming for all our devices soon. Since online services will start relying on one of these apps being present on our phones, how will it be implemented on Sailfish OS? Especially since the European Commission will decide which app is trusted and they likely don’t even know about Sailfish OS. Haven’t found any discussion about specifically the implementations, only complaints which I understand, but we won’t get out of this.
How do I know if an app is an official version or a scam?
The European Commission will work with Apple, Google and other app stores to whitelist only official versions of the AV app and flag/take down imposters.
Furthermore, the Commission will maintain a list of EU trusted age verification solutions, which will contain only those solutions that have been validated to meet the requirements of the EU Age Verification Scheme.
This to me implies that a non-validated app will be useless anyway since services will be able to just query this “trusted” list and only communicate with the apps on it, I find this very likely even if only because nobody wants to be held liable for anything, which in case of Android apps I don’t expect working with microG only, especially the versions member states integrate into their digital ID wallet apps, which we know will require the Play Integrity API and we can safely assume it won’t accept microG’s implementation (unless something has changed since last year when the discussion on GitHub was closed with, as far as I know, no consideration to how many people raised valid concerns and conflicts of interest)
Though honestly even if I trusted some of these apps, I wouldn’t trust the majority anyway since it can be integrated into whatever proprietary solution companies or even governments want to make.
I am very interested in this topic myself. I’ve been following the progress of this and find it alarming at which speed this whole verification topic is now being pressed on. I don’t mind verifying myself for necessary services like opening a bank account. But introducing OS based verification for social media platforms to operate is such a horrible idea. Currently companies like Meta already have a mind blowing amount of data about people but were always told not to collect PII like the real identity. Now the tendency is to create a law that enables them via the operating system to access this kind of data. Meanwhile those companies also get freed of their duty to manage their platforms and make it safer for children. Why should they invest in protection mechanisms when they can just put a lock at the entrance and wait for everyone to strip themselves naked in order to come in?
To me this movement is a great danger towards anonymity and privacy. The protection of children is the big shiny label they put on everything. As soon as they have manifested this technology, “safety” is something the current ruling class defines. Think about political activists, environmental and human rights groups, journalists etc. There is a big chance our devices will be turned into panopticons. If you look for it, you find a lot of previews for the future to come. Look for example at the person being arrested and charged in the USA just for wiping his own mobile phone. This is nothing illegal and there’s no law against it. They just charge him for “wiping a Pixel phone”.
I’m here for the anti-verification movement because I don’t want my children to think it’s normal for the government to have control over my personal devices and information.
This person is an American citizen, so he likely did not expect there to be any issues when re-entering the US. Everyone else is advised to do the wipe well in advance of crossing an international border.
Being an American citizen might be not so funny under the reign of King Donny The Orange but except from crossing borders eg to China, USA, North Korea or Afghanistan I feel save enough to cross many borders without even taking my phone out if my pocket.
So, you think because the various member states can’t agree on the exact implementations so the EU Commission leaves most of it up to the member states (a case of bureaucracy working in our favor by delaying these cases progressing but also against us since it introduces a lot of fragmentation, serious uncertainty to international but still within EU communication, and ultimately whoever comes up with the most oppressive method will be the one collecting and analyzing the most data of the most EU citizens), we can lay back and pretend it’s not happening? A version of chat control already passed because the powers that be find a way, countries are already demoing “age” verification for over a year now and despite you being in the EU, a bunch of American companies are free to ask for your ID, facial scan or both to verify who you are, until recently Palantir was a big favorite all over the EU but some governments searching for “European alternatives” doesn’t mean whatever they were doing behind closed doors suddenly disappears, just changes hands, and it doesn’t matter who has all your data when the goal is exactly the same everywhere, to profile you and predict your behavior. ProtectEU for example didn’t disappear and it’s a bit naive to think that because there was no visible progress in one year, there won’t be any further serious privacy invading measures introduced as the people behind this want to know everything about everybody and control the flow of information like never before. All their talking points are fine and dandy until you think about the amount of data they need and where they get it from to pull sweeping, society-wide “protection and prevention” off in all the areas they try covering, especially integrated with their Apply AI Strategy. Remember that we used to treat big data as a problem and not even just because it can be used for policing and surveillance but because it can be inaccurate and draw conclusions from patterns that aren’t there? That was well before we even thought it’s possible that we’ll need a government or some company issued application to validate who we are and go through all our messages before they’re even encrypted and sent.
Do we know anything about how Jolla plans to handle the upcoming age verification and ID wallet app situation?
No we don’t! And we won’t, until someone actually question them in e.g. a community meeting. Until then, we can only speculate… and that is something I don’t do. I prefer facts.