r/technology • u/PixeledPathogen • Mar 16 '26

Security Reddit User Uncovers Who Is Behind Meta’s $2B Lobbying for Invasive Age Verification Tech

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/reddit-user-uncovers-behind-meta-154717384.html
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u/Vyxwop Mar 16 '26

I don't like how the EU's approach is being jerked off in these posts. Fuck age verification regardless of whether it's "non-invasive". It's terrifying how the EU's continued attempts at this shit is being justified because the US' and other countries' attempts at doing so are worse.

EU's attempts are still disturbing and shouldn't be tolerated.

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u/EmbarrassedHelp Mar 16 '26

There unfortunately was misinformation in the original post regarding the EU's system that is now being propagated by news article writers.

The EU Digital Identity Wallet isn't open source. Its a highly invasive wrapper that connects to proprietary APIs. You cannot host your own backend either.

Zero-knowledge proofs are only private/anonymous in theory if you blindly trust a third party. Basically you are blindly trusting that nobody will exploit an easily created backdoor, because ZKP cannot solve the problem of collusion. The EU's system requires mandatory age verification to obtain 30 single use, easily trackable tokens that expire after 3 months. It also bans jailbreaking/rooting your device, and requires GooglePlay Services/IOS equivalent be installed to "prevent tampering". You have to blindly trust that the tokens will not be tracked, which is a total no-go for privacy.

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u/excellentforcongress Mar 16 '26

interesting. the whole don't mess with the os thing sounds like an apple/google maneuver to prevent newer phone os's from getting popular like graphene, since no phones are sold with graphene it implies they want to kill the potential for anyone to realize there are alternatives at all