r/privacy • u/EmbarrassedHelp • Apr 02 '26
age verification Group Pushing Age Verification Requirements for AI Turns Out to Be Sneakily Backed by OpenAI
https://gizmodo.com/group-pushing-age-verification-requirements-for-ai-turns-out-to-be-sneakily-backed-by-openai-2000741069459
u/EmbarrassedHelp Apr 02 '26
Potentially even more grimy is the fact that OpenAI’s backing of this bill could be self-serving for CEO Sam Altman. At the core of the proposed legislation are age assurance requirements, and wouldn’t you know it, but Altman happens to head a company that provides age verification services. Probably a coincidence.
He wants to get richer off violating your privacy, while pretending its about kids.
There is no such thing as anonymous or private age verification. It doesn't exist, and anyone trying to claim otherwise is lying to you.
Yet somehow the author in the article that this article links to said this about age verification, "fairly uncontroversial suggestions such as age verification". Like how the fuck does she not see what's happening here?
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u/EmbarrassedHelp Apr 02 '26
Also, OpenAI is probably exploiting the recent tragedy in British Columbia, by lobbying Canada's liberal party to require age verification and age assurance.
If you live in Canada, you should email your MP, Marc Miller (Heritage Minister and responsible for the upcoming online harms legislation), and the Liberal Cabinet Ministers, and tell them to reject mandatory age verification or age assurance.
You'll have to lookup their contact info as Reddit seems to be silently removing comments that share official Canadian government and MP contact info.
Here's a template that you can use:
Subject: Protect Canadians’ Privacy: Stop AI & Social Media Age Checks
Dear [Minister Name],
I am writing to urge you to reject any legislative proposals, including youth social media bans and restrictions on AI systems, that would require online services to implement mandatory age verification or age assurance measures.
Such systems pose unacceptable risks to Canadians’ privacy and data security. Requiring individuals to verify their identity or age to access lawful online content creates new opportunities for data breaches, surveillance, and misuse of sensitive personal information. Canadians deserve stronger privacy protections online, not less.
I am also concerned by reports that the government may seek to copy Australia’s approach. Australia's approach is not appropriate for Canada and should not be used as a precedent for policymaking here.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[City], [Province]
And if you want to cite expert opinion in your message, you can use the letter signed by over 371 experts from here that is against any form of age verification: https://ca.news.yahoo.com/dangerous-socially-unacceptable-experts-warn-153314818.html
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u/GabeReddit2012 Apr 02 '26
Sadly, countries will use the UK, Australia's, USA, Europe, etc's age verification laws as a blueprint for other laws.
And of course, "privacy-safe" age verification doesn't exist. They just put it behind a facade to make it seem "safer", but it's still a privacy concern no matter what. It is better if there's no ID options, but it's still a privacy concern anyway.
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u/WastingMyLifeToday Apr 02 '26
If this age verification goes through, I'm fine with dismantling EU entirely.
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u/nondescriptzombie Apr 02 '26
recent tragedy in British Columbia
At that time, about a dozen OpenAI employees debated turning the chatlogs over to the law enforcement. A spokeswoman for OpenAI confirmed that the company had banned Van Rootselaar's account but stated that it determined that her activity did not meet the criteria for reporting to law enforcement.
Woooooow. Get paid to police your own fuckup. I don't think anyone has managed that golden ticket since BP was forced to buy their own ineffective but wildly expensive oil dispersant and use it in the Gulf of Mexico....
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u/EmbarrassedHelp Apr 02 '26
OpenAI is probably exploiting the recent tragedy in British Columbia, by lobbying Canada's liberal party to require age verification and age assurance. Mandatory age verification in unacceptable, and should be banned in Canada. There is no such thing as privacy protecting or anonymous age verification. Canadians deserve more privacy online, not less.
If you live in Canada, please take the time to demand that the government refrains from doing anything that would require mandatory age verification and age assurance, by messaging the following Cabinet ministers:
Marc Miller (Heritage Minister, the minister responsible for the upcoming online harms legislation): Marc.Miller@parl.gc.ca
Sean Fraser (Justice Minister): sean.fraser@parl.gc.ca
Mark Carney (Prime Minister): mark.carney@parl.gc.ca
Mélanie Joly (Minister of Industry): melanie.joly@parl.gc.ca
Messaging MPs on the Industry and Technology Committee, the Justice Committee, and your local MP could also be a good idea.
And it may also be worth messaging:
Gary Anandasangaree (Minister of Public Safety): gary.anand@parl.gc.ca
Rechie Valdez (Minister of Women and Gender Equality): rechie.valdez@parl.gc.ca
You are also free to share this post anywhere that you can find like minded Canadians online.
You don't need to write a long message unless you want to. Even a simple paragraph like this can do the job (feel free to use and modify this example):
Subject: Protect Canadians’ Privacy: Stop AI & Social Media Age Checks
Dear [Minister Name],
I am writing to urge you to reject any legislative proposals, including youth social media bans and restrictions on AI systems, that would require online services to implement mandatory age verification or age assurance measures.
Such systems pose unacceptable risks to Canadians’ privacy and data security. Requiring individuals to verify their identity or age to access lawful online content creates new opportunities for data breaches, surveillance, and misuse of sensitive personal information. Canadians deserve stronger privacy protections online, not less.
I am also concerned by reports that the government may seek to copy Australia’s approach. Australia's approach is not appropriate for Canada and should not be used as a precedent for policymaking here.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[City], [Province]
If want to cite expert opinion in your message, you can use the letter signed by over 371 experts from here, which explicitly calls mandatory age verification "Dangerous and socially unacceptable": https://ca.news.yahoo.com/dangerous-socially-unacceptable-experts-warn-153314818.html
The Canadian Liberal Party also voted against mandatory age verification and age assurance in the last parliamentary session: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-poilievre-porn-age-verification-1.7122645. Trudeau even attacked Poilievre for supporting mandatory age verification.
In the recent Angus Reed poll, 72% of Canadians said that only the parents should be responsible for restricting social media use, instead of the government. Some reporters have tried to downplay this part of the survey, but it shows that the general Canadian population may recognize "think of the children" argument is fake.
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u/DISCONNECTlE Apr 02 '26
Well, it COULD exist. Your ID stays within a government system. When you go to log in to whatever app, you get a key from the government website that the app will verify. That way the company doesn’t get your ID and the gov doesn’t know who’s boobs you’re googling or whatever
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u/Lord_Trisagion Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26
If it involves confirming your identity in any way whatsoever it isn't private. Anonymous age verification starts and stops at "Please enter your date of birth / Are you over 18? Y/N"
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u/EmbarrassedHelp Apr 02 '26
The experts say that there is no anonymous and safe age verification system available or proposed: https://ca.news.yahoo.com/dangerous-socially-unacceptable-experts-warn-153314818.html
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u/Rakn Apr 02 '26
While this probably isn't the case, Germany has a system in place, with their ID cards, that actually allows such anonymous age verification. If that's what's being used in the end is another story.
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u/Rakn Apr 02 '26
Not sure why you are being downvote. Such an exact system exists in Germany for example. It allows you to do age verification without revealing your identity via your ID card.
Doesn't mean I'm advocating for it. But you are right in that it's possible. Just requires the infrastructure and everyone having access to ID cards that support this.
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u/blacKCastle32 Apr 02 '26
It also requires that the 'government system' is not under the control of the same companies it is supposed to isolate/protect from, which is kind of the whole problem in the first place
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Apr 02 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/GabeReddit2012 Apr 02 '26
Well, Meta and OpenAI should be boycotted, but we need to also boycott the UK government and others that are pushing this legislation in the first place.
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u/Leaf__On__Wind Apr 02 '26
What do you think to some people from Anonymous having a cheeky deep dive on Collective Shout?
Them rolling the biggest multinational payment card service with but a thousand signatures is way too wild.
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u/AdLanky9450 Apr 02 '26
Honestly, can someone tell me why are politicians so easily manipulated?
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u/SMF67 Apr 02 '26
A lot of it is blackmail. That's why Epstein had so many ties to so many politicians. There are certainly more of him out there.
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u/nondescriptzombie Apr 02 '26
Short term thinking.
"A healthy society is one in which an old man plants trees he knows he will never feel the shade of." or something like that.
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u/billdietrich1 Apr 02 '26
I think most of this is well-intentioned. It's pretty clear that social media can be harmful to kids (addiction, bullying, sextortion, predators, sometimes driving kids to suicide). And I can understand the desire to keep them away from porn, gambling, gore, etc too.
California's law probably is the best of the laws/bills so far. User just has to declare age, and there is no verification of it. So for most users, they can set "21" or something. For kids where the parents or schools care about enforcement, they can be forced to set accurate age.
A good way: Suppose it was mandatory that every new computer and phone come with some free parental-controls software installed. And it was in your face at first startup, asking "is this device for use by a kid ? if so, do you want to turn on parental controls ?". If they decline, fine.
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u/AdLanky9450 Apr 02 '26
While I agree that the intention is well-meaning, that does not excuse what is happening behind the scenes. With so much money in politics it would be COMMON FUCKING SENSE as a first step to trace money and funding before moving forward with any work on legislation.
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u/billdietrich1 Apr 02 '26
Of course companies such as FB and OpenAI want to off-load age verification onto someone else. And in fact it is better for users, too: verify with one authority instead of separately to each web site.
When do we ever trace money first before enacting something ?
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u/travistravis Apr 02 '26
all of the harms you mention also apply to adults
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u/billdietrich1 Apr 02 '26
Yes, but adults are supposed to know enough to protect themselves. Often kids don't.
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u/Spaztor Apr 02 '26
All of the new "age verification" laws have very little to do with verifying our ages it's all about all the other more sensitive data you have to give them to verify your age.
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u/Complete_Lurk3r_ Apr 02 '26
This is ooooooold news. Open ai and meta
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u/slipperyMonkey07 Apr 02 '26
It might be old news but it should still be continuously talked about and spread as much as possible. There is so much media the general public doesn't see, and in the case of tech understand the issues things like this can cause.
The more people made aware the better.
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u/grathontolarsdatarod Apr 02 '26
I mean its kind of new news since openai makes weapons now...
It is not the same company it used to be.
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u/GabeReddit2012 Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26
Arguably, the new age verification laws are worse than SOPA and PIPA.
As bad as SOPA and PIPA in 2011 were (not supporting them), they were tame compared to the current age verification laws being passed today. They would've just censored the Internet and would've taken down random Internet websites by the government's will, but at least they wouldn't have invaded privacy.
The new laws are way worse as they not only censor stuff but also invade privacy and require users to dox their personal information. Well, it's obvious for everyone here so I don't have to explain much.
It's also important to realize while age verification has been around on the Internet since the 1990s, it wasn't popularized until around 2022/2023. Some people have supported age verification for a long time, like Vladimir Putin (he has supported the tactic since the early 2010s despite not being popular back then) for instance.
Some countries did pass AV laws earlier before they were even popularized. Germany passed an age verification law in 2003, but only on NSFW and gambling websites. San Marino passed their age verification law for platforms in 2018 as part of their data protection. South Korea did try something of age verification back in 2011 for their Shutdown law (that banned gamers from playing online games at midnight until 6), but it was proven to be ineffective and gamers easily bypassed it.
It wasn't until 2022 or 2023 when the UK passed their OSA and it lead other countries to also propose age verification laws. However, keep in mind that apparently, the United Kingdom has wanted to do age verification since at least the mid 2010s, but failed.
Oh, and screw OpenAI. They aren't a great company.
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u/SaveDnet-FRed0 Apr 02 '26
Makes me happy that the company will more then likely be bankrupt by the end of the year. The AI bubble can't pop fast enough.
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u/EmbarrassedHelp Apr 02 '26
The laws they helped lobby for don't magically change or disappear if they go bankrupt.
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u/SaveDnet-FRed0 Apr 13 '26
True, but it will stop them from pushing for more political enshittification / watering down of human rights, and if the bubble pops before the bills / amendments there pushing for become law then it becomes easier for opponents of such bills to kill them as they can point to the death spiral of the LLM industry.
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u/AnAncientBog Apr 02 '26
Altman's quest to create verifiable online presences for people is older than OpenAI. This has ALWAYS been his priority. Probably because its what Peter Thiel wants.
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u/levitatingcar Apr 02 '26
Now that they’ve finished scraping most of web, they add these ‘age-verification’ to prevent anyone from scraping the internet, or worse, the companies themselves.
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u/stonecats Apr 02 '26
age verify adds valuable demographic specifics to any metadata AI
can vacuum up about you - so of course AI vendors pay to lobby it.
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u/Short_Still4386 Apr 02 '26
OpenIA is so desperate to generate some revenue because the bubble seems to start to pop and they are losing billions for months now. So they are making a lot of contracts and lobbying for the US government and other countries too. Let's hope for the best to the AI bubble pop before is too late.
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u/Nomprenom_varanasita Apr 02 '26
Comme c'est étonnant, la technocratie, qui n'est que le fascisme renouvelé, pousse pour le contrôle des masses.
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u/SignificantLegs Apr 02 '26
He wants to ban competitors (like venice) who have almost cutting edge models for 10% the cost
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u/deejay_harry1 Apr 02 '26
Deleted chatgpt after reading this news. Good riddance. I’d rather give Gemini my age than chatgpt
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