Discord have belatedly confirmed that they're working with Persona, an identity detection firm backed by a fund directed by Palantir chairman Peter Thiel.
I mean that if someone wants to self host matrix just to chat with a small group of friends they can just as well use Discord. The age verification is about access to restricted servers. You can still use it for your private servers without sending any documents.
No one is asking kids to send their data. They are asking adults to verify they are adults. Why would kids verify that their are kids? As for kids sending their data for no reason I think it’s up the their parents to teach them how to use internet.
In a world where the boogeymen of Palantir and nation-state bad actors plundering personal data are actually real, saying “no one is asking kids to send their data” is beyond naive, it’s putting your head in the sand.
This is why the age verification thing is bad… IT ISNT ABOUT THE KIDS.
Both the motivation and the goal of these checkpass type systems is to collect your data!
You started talking about kids for some reason. Now you’re saying it’s actually not about kids. Maybe think about it for a moment and then tell me again what the problem is.
Following the announcement of Discord’s new age verification policy - already in force in the UK and Australia, with a global rollout beginning in early March - social media users shared screengrabs of prompts to consent to Persona collecting their data over the weekend.
As I understood the above paragraph from the article, two things are happening that Persona is involved in:
The implementation of an age verification system, that may or may not be required for all servers.
Users are being asked about consent on mining their data, that may (according to the FAQ) be kept for up to a week.
And from the FAQ:
If you’re located in the UK, you may be part of an experiment where your information will be processed by an age-assurance vendor, Persona. The information you submit will be temporarily stored for up to 7 days, then deleted.
It sounds to me that these are two separate things currently happening, even if the data from #2 might be used in the execution of #1 when verification is required.
If I read the article correctly, even if only some servers require age verification Persona still seems to ask for consent to mine your data. Considering how jaded most people are when it comes to cookie prompts, it would be understandable if kids just clicked yes on this consent screen to continue chatting with their friends, unaware that they just gave away their current and future data to this Palantir-linked company, even if they haven’t shared (or will ever need to share) their ID.
An ID verification scheme will always be broken by design due to the sensitive information that is shared and needs to be (cough) securely processed by some company, but at least it’s a more explicit decision and action of multiple steps required by you.
Allowing continous data mining, however, is just a simple click and something you will have forgotten about in a few hours or days.
For me this looks like Persona is only responsible for age verification. Unless you’re asked to verify your age you’re not sharing any data with them or consenting to hand them any data Discord mayhave.
I mean that if someone wants to self host matrix just to chat with a small group of friends they can just as well use Discord. The age verification is about access to restricted servers. You can still use it for your private servers without sending any documents.
No one is asking kids to send their data. They are asking adults to verify they are adults. Why would kids verify that their are kids? As for kids sending their data for no reason I think it’s up the their parents to teach them how to use internet.
In a world where the boogeymen of Palantir and nation-state bad actors plundering personal data are actually real, saying “no one is asking kids to send their data” is beyond naive, it’s putting your head in the sand.
This is why the age verification thing is bad… IT ISNT ABOUT THE KIDS.
Both the motivation and the goal of these checkpass type systems is to collect your data!
You started talking about kids for some reason. Now you’re saying it’s actually not about kids. Maybe think about it for a moment and then tell me again what the problem is.
deleted by creator
As I understood the above paragraph from the article, two things are happening that Persona is involved in:
The implementation of an age verification system, that may or may not be required for all servers.
Users are being asked about consent on mining their data, that may (according to the FAQ) be kept for up to a week.
And from the FAQ:
It sounds to me that these are two separate things currently happening, even if the data from #2 might be used in the execution of #1 when verification is required.
If I read the article correctly, even if only some servers require age verification Persona still seems to ask for consent to mine your data. Considering how jaded most people are when it comes to cookie prompts, it would be understandable if kids just clicked yes on this consent screen to continue chatting with their friends, unaware that they just gave away their current and future data to this Palantir-linked company, even if they haven’t shared (or will ever need to share) their ID.
An ID verification scheme will always be broken by design due to the sensitive information that is shared and needs to be (cough) securely processed by some company, but at least it’s a more explicit decision and action of multiple steps required by you.
Allowing continous data mining, however, is just a simple click and something you will have forgotten about in a few hours or days.
For me this looks like Persona is only responsible for age verification. Unless you’re asked to verify your age you’re not sharing any data with them or consenting to hand them any data Discord mayhave.
Yeah, I looked at the screenshots again and it looks like it is only in the age verification flow Persona is asking for consent to collect data.