FTC is seeking public comments on an ESRB proposal to use facial recognition for COPPA consent when children play games. (www.pcgamer.com)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Carighan@lemmy.world to c/games@lemmy.world

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This seems... wild.

Although, it's important to keep in mind that this is in the context of COPPA consent, which already required photo ID by the parent for children under the age of 13.

Still, I cannot see this truly going well. It's smarter than just a picture, sure. But it's done by a VC-funded private company and by Epic. I'd give it about 12 minutes until archives of thousands of uploaded mini-videos for verification appear on the net, probably public because someone forgot to properly patch the web server.

However to not go all crazy on it: This also opens up the can of "How do we do smarter online age verification, anyways?". AI-based facial recognition isn't a sensible one if you ask me, but we need a better way as other countries have already ruled that simply putting in your age or clicking an "i'm 18+"-button is not legally binding and hence cannot be used as verifiable age verification.

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[-] Carighan@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Of course, and it's difficult to do this well ,which is why it stalled so far. At least some thought is given to privacy over here, so there'd need to be a way to say "This person here, this person is >18". But not know the person or the actual age. Which is doable, it's just not easy, especially because the service has to be ~100% reliable.

[-] Call_Me_Maple@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago

Agreed, and it's just me I'm sure, but 18 is such an arbitrary number anyways. People all mature at different speeds and to limit someone who's fine with that kind of content just because another person dislikes it by imposing a hard limit like a government id feels disingenuous, but I recognize a lot of people are going to disagree with me on that.

It's a bit comedic, but I picture a scenario where a dad is trying to watch a movie with his kid and all of a sudden just before a scene where a quarter of a character's boob is shown it stops and prompts him with a "Are you over 18? Please scan your face to continue." And also would it even allow them if it also saw the kid there? Better yet take the kid out of the equation, it's just an adult trying to watch an R rated movie or an M rated game.

Just some things to consider I guess.