> effectively regulating and destroying the anonymous nature of the internet
Technically you can make that work without issues (You only need to prove your age not your identity, something which can reasonably be archived without leaking your identity).
There are just two practical issues:
- companies, government and state (at least US police & spy agencies) will try to undermine any afford to create a reasonable anonymous
- it only technically works if a "reasonable degree" of proof is "good enough", i.e. it's must be fine that a hacker can create a (illegal?) tool with which a child could pretend to be 16+, e.g. by proxing the age check to a hacked device of an adult. Heck it should be fine if a check can be tricked by using the parents passport or phone. I mean it's an 16+ check, there really isn't much of a reason why it isn't okay to have a system which is only "good enough". But lawmakers will try nonsense.
Interestingly this is more a problem for the US then some other states AFIK due to how 1) you can't expect everyone 18+ to have an id and everyone 16+ to be able to easily get one (a bunch of countries have owing (not carrying) id requirements without it being a privacy issue. 2) Terrible consumer protection making it practically nearly impossible to create a privacy preserving system even if government and state agencies do not meddle.
Similar if there wouldn't be the issue with passports in US it probably wouldn't touch the First Amendment as it in the end protects less then a lot of people believe it does.
Technically you can make that work without issues (You only need to prove your age not your identity, something which can reasonably be archived without leaking your identity).
There are just two practical issues:
- companies, government and state (at least US police & spy agencies) will try to undermine any afford to create a reasonable anonymous
- it only technically works if a "reasonable degree" of proof is "good enough", i.e. it's must be fine that a hacker can create a (illegal?) tool with which a child could pretend to be 16+, e.g. by proxing the age check to a hacked device of an adult. Heck it should be fine if a check can be tricked by using the parents passport or phone. I mean it's an 16+ check, there really isn't much of a reason why it isn't okay to have a system which is only "good enough". But lawmakers will try nonsense.
Interestingly this is more a problem for the US then some other states AFIK due to how 1) you can't expect everyone 18+ to have an id and everyone 16+ to be able to easily get one (a bunch of countries have owing (not carrying) id requirements without it being a privacy issue. 2) Terrible consumer protection making it practically nearly impossible to create a privacy preserving system even if government and state agencies do not meddle.
Similar if there wouldn't be the issue with passports in US it probably wouldn't touch the First Amendment as it in the end protects less then a lot of people believe it does.