Again, I don’t want to annoy anybody here but I suggest to stop talking of “age verification” because in order to verify anything about somebody they need to IDENTIFY the person same as on any ID card or passport which includes biometric information, place and date of birth and so on. It can be done by making everybody submit they data and then log in with their personal account or on the fly by face recognition, finger prints, etc. That is the same as accessing the smartphone, not by accident.
What the “laws” aim for is to identify every single user but they don’t care of devices, they want to indentify Internet users and collect all the information about them. Ideally, force everybody to use the same software so together with information recording there can be any sort of enforcing, via the Internet services or some Police force.
Please note that nobody says parents should not put smartphones or PCs in the hands of the young ones, the idea is everybody must be “connected” since birth but to protect the “public” everybody must be indentified by the machine (and any action listened, seen and recorded).
There are several consequences, that is not the simple idea of “freedom” like I can criticize the Government without having my door kicked at 3 in the night, it is about anything in life, like profiling people and providing information, controlling thoughts and behaviors, forcing the payment of subscriptions for everything (everything as “service”) and so on.
“If systemd already implemented something, is there a need for anything else?” I was wondering this too. Upon hearing systemd implement age in userdb I immediately switched to Debian with OpenRC.
Again, please note that the idea is to IDENTIFY each single person who access “online and offilne” services, basically your whole life. The thing nobody seems to understand and care is that automation makes easy to place gates wheever people go and whatever they do, gates that identify and record and/or apply enforcing.
As for the OS age verification mess - why not just remove the app store? The discover software center? Isn’t that the attachment point of these laws? An operating system with a curated app store or download center?
Just get your updates manually. Like we did before we decided we needed an OS to do it for us.
Excise the app store. If that is the attachment point.
EDIT: I think we should stop calling it age-attestation and start calling it what it is - regardless of anything else it becomes. It’s compliance attestation. They said jump. Some jumped and then asked how high on their way up. Some of us said no. Some said “which direction” Some of us said jump yourself, off a cliff.
My current interpretation is that no.. that is not sufficient. The age signal API provided by the OS is intended to be available for all applications to query at application runtime if the application exposes content or UX that may be sensitive in nature that parents are uncomfortable having their children exposed to.
Again this goes to my reading of intent that this is about ensuring there are standard tools in place in the operating system that make it possible to express parental consent when the system administrator is the parent or guardian setting up the login account that will be using the device.
It’s not just about what applications are allowed to be installed. Its about making sure running applications have a standard way to query the operating system and ask for parental consent so those applications can modify the UX they expose to match parental expectations based on the age of the user account, created by a parent or gaurdian.
A software store that allows users to install software without administrator authority, is just one type of application that may choose to make use of the OS provided age signal to modify its runtime behavior. Parents may also benefit from other applications that query the system so they make age appropriate UX choices, in line with parental expectations.
I think its perfectly reasonable for operating systems to provide a queryable API that applications can make use of to determine parental consent when the user of the system is under age (and not a consenting adult). Such APIs make it possible for parents to communicate expectations via the operating system’s APIs in a way that application developers can respond to and ensure application UX and content meets parental expectations. Its unfortunate that legislation was needed as a forcing function to figure out how to standardize an OS signal, but that’s where we are now.
You think it’s perfectly reasonable for an OS to provide a queryable API that apps can make use of to determine parental consent when the user of a system is under age?
Then install it. I don’t have kids. I haven’t been a kid in many decades. I’m not installing it. “It” can go to hell along with the entire government and their corporate dogs.
This will be my last entry to this forum. I came here to address my concern and attempt to plead with Fedora. It got the thread moved to the freakin’ water cooler.
Which is fine. The whole world seems to be stacked in favor of this trash.
I’ve made my case, I’ve said my peace. I will not comply. Other Linux forums are apparently banning/censoring outrage and dissent. I am grateful that my words were heard and not deleted, at least.
I will look on my short time with Fedora with fondness. I was a Win10"EOL" refugee, I landed on Linux Mint and after some months fell in love with Fedora and Alma Linux for my server.
It’s been real, I guess.
I’m taking this as my exit cue. Fedora seems set on compliance.
Note that NO OFFICIAL FEDORA STANCE has ever been expressed here. The fedora council sets the guidelines and policies and this forum is not an official communication medium for fedora policy.
You cannot state what I just quoted as fact since you have not interacted directly nor officially with the fedora management. This forum is for users, posts are from users, and the discussion has been users viewpoints. Nothing official has been disclosed in this topic – merely a lot of personal opinions and complaints.
This does raise the question that maybe should have been asked earlier: What is the general mood behind the scenes? I would hope that the general hostility on this forum to the idea of age verification (or anything similar) hasn’t gone unnoticed.
I would also understand given how clear people’s passion and anger are if the powers that be would rather their thoughts not be known publicly.
Unfortunately I think the vast majority of people have no idea that it is happening. I posted this on my Facebook profile and got quite a few surprised responses. I went to my legislator’s website (NY, USA) to search for bills related to “age verification”: None, great. Except not great. The search was just garbage. Google pointed me to the actual bill link and I gave my senator a piece of my mind (professionally, with facts and stuff.) It’s not easy. On Xtwit there’s some FTC talking heads like Jon Schweppe praising age verification and calling anyone who speaks out about it bots. I trolled them (somewhat respectfully) on several posts. No replies. Likely my posts just get deleted, just like Free Speech absolutest Musk intended.
In the last year bills in the US have popped up about background check requirements for 3D printers, forced AI scanning of GCODE for any 3D printer or even other CNC equipment “capable of producing a firearm”, bans on routers, age verification, etc. They all have one thing in common: Removing access to tools, making it harder to make things. Some jackass just made a land-to-air missile with mostly 3D printed parts and some cheap ESP32’s. Next we will see more lock downs on 3D printers and probably lock downs on any programmable boards. All bootloaders locked, requiring a registered account to have the privilege of using your own stuff. The current age attestation is just the fine point of the wedge. There is zero chance laws stop there if this is implemented.
Frankly I guess I still speak from a privileged position in the US. In theory I do still have rights and some of this may hit resistance in the courts. Given all the momentum over-seas, especially in Europe, I am not holding out much hope. Rage, rage against the dying of the light though…if everyone speaks up, speaks out, educates, marches, stops working, etc something can happen. Everyone needs to tell a friend and convince them why it matters though.
I am always impressed at what software developers can produce, especially in OpenSource so I would hate to judge their intent or criticize any jumps to implement something that seems inevitable. It all does remind me of what a few veteran senators said to the military when our orange leader was commanding missile strikes on fishing boats: “You must refuse illegal orders.” Literally true, but tricky to get right. No one is likely to court martial a solder for hitting a civilian with a stray bullet in the middle of a heated engagement with the enemy. Missile strikes with God’s view on a ship in the middle of nowhere moving slower than a coast guard cutter is another story. Forced software requirements on devices US citizens with 4th Amendment rights use for personal, private business lies somewhere in the grey zone. It’s not even just an impending privacy nightmare, it has real monetary impacts to users of the ecosystem. Development hours aside, there WILL be frivolous law suits. “My 13 year old client used VideoDownloader to gather adult videos even though the developer allowed the age signal to download the app.” Personally, I would refuse to implement the change as I see it violating my professional ethics. There has to be some backlash to make noise.
I agree entirely, if/when I catch wind of this foolish notion coming in my country backed as ever with the language of “protect the children“, I will be contacting my MP to ask “why is the government seeking to aid and abet paedophiles? And if this law passes, who will be charged with the offence of aiding and abetting?“. I’m sure I’ll get some non-answer but I can post both in relevant places.
In terms of America specifically I can only hope people realise and act upon their constitutional duty while people still pretend that document matters and carries any weight, but that’s veering dangerously into off-topic territory.
Who is “parent”? What stops a minor to pose as parent?
My guess is “parent” is whoever provides her/his ID when the system is installed and an “admin” is set. The “admin” then takes “responsibility” on whover and whatever that can be traced back to that device because of the personal ID that comes with it.
It is an obvious and rather silly “trojan horse” because once the “admin” ID is set, that is what must be queried to “verify”, that means to enforce any “rule” on somebody. Two folds actualy, “check ID” and “associate” the ID to any online activity because when you log in some Internet service the thing would ask the ID and then record.
I think we are missing the point entirely here. Right now when I come to the border of some well known country I must provide the “security” access to my own devices AND my online accounts because you know, I am a criminal and I write my plans on Facebook, TikTok, X and alike. Isn’t it way better if the authorities can apply mass screening with some automated system? What about something like “the machine” from Person of Interest, an AI that scans Internet contents and identifyes “targets”?
If the OS has age verification systems, what’s saying apps have to query it?
Or, what about not using any apps that check for age since they’re likely advocating for it? Why continue using Facebook if Meta’s apparently pushing for the verification not wanted on an OS?
How is this supposed to work for social media apps in browsers? Surely Firefox isn’t doing an age query for every website visited?
all i can add after reading whole discussion: Fedora, please, work on opposition to this law, so this won’t be an issue for anyone. You are major distribution that have possibilities to revert this law, protect people and stop surveillance machine to grow. Work together with another distributions - small and large - to stop this madness. It will pay out you more then blindly complying with laws. People always were and will be on war with governments about their freedom, it is what it is. Pick the right side. If in need - create donation pool for lawyers, court and other stuff. Be the one who protects the right, freedom. Don’t become evil.
the OS can verify your age only in two ways, either with some facial scanning software and that can be done at any given moment upon request (that is why you need a cover for the device camera) or by asking you to input some ID code and then query a State service to check the ID code exists and matches the other personal data you input. Please note that it is the same as Microsoft activation key which is (was?) required to verify your license .
once you have “activated” the OS with your ID code, you don’t know what asks for it, when and why. It could be done each time you connect to the Internet, It could be done each time you log in some Internet service like this forum. Which again is the same as Microsoft checking, recording and managing licenses, software and services.
following the tradition, if you don’t like it you are told to code an Operating System yourself.
Problem is laws don’t appear by accident, they are proposed and approved because of lobbying, it means there are powerful forces in motion that want to identify users and basically get rid of anonymity.
Some comments above I wrote about the EU building the “Digital ID” needed to access offline and online services, this goes with the same EU requiring a “middle man thing” to decrypt any encoded message and in the same time I am told in my own country public middle schools (kids from 10 to 13 years old I guess) ask parents to provide smartphones to the students so they can access some “app” that manages the school activities, which then exposes the 10-13 years old kids to the Internet with all the issues.
By even considering this nonsense, we’re legitimising this nonsense. If Fedora implements an age verification system, it shall no longer by my OS of choice.
Agreed. I’m more than willing to entertain a DOB field that’s just local to my machine and user account… but that ain’t ever where it ends. Sooner or later, the ability to fill out 01/01/1900 will be taken away. Refuse the first inch before they take yet another mile. I specifically abandoned Windows for Linux because I was tired of egregious and invasive practices. We haven’t yet approached the threshold of requiring an online account to make the user account. But I ain’t sticking around to find out if that’s where it ends.
In the practical context of this law the “parent” is “whoever is setting up the laptop for the child”. and what stops the minor to pose as a parent?
The fact that minors don’t have jobs and money to go and buy their own laptops or devices. Or more actively perhaps their parents confiscating unauthorized devices.
The idea is a parent would buy a laptop, create the child an account within the correct age bracket and the applications would behave accordingly.
As a writer, this concerns me. All I want is to write without having to identify myself, without censorship, or without my content being blocked. I’m on Fedora right now, and I’d hate to feel like I have to look for another distro if things keep going this way. I love simplicity—Fedora is one of those simple things I enjoy using. I don’t do anything complex: just LibreOffice Writer, Calibre, and a browser to back up my documents. There’s no need for me to give up my personal information, age, name, nothing. I’m just a sci‑fi writer who wants to stay focused on my projects with a distro that is not intrusive or abusive.
I’m the author of a sci‑fi book where everything is regulated by nefarious government powers—freedom has been lost, even Linux and the FOSS principles. I wrote that book in 2024. I wanted to be a bit pessimistic about the years to come, but everything is starting to fall into place just as I wrote it, and I don’t want that to happen. If these words find a small place of humility in your hearts, please be careful with what you do. Don’t give in to the powers that be.
Thank you for providing, through the years, this great experience that is Fedora. I hope you continue on that same path without enforcing users to comply with these regulations just for a handful of ill‑intentioned politicians. You have my support to raise our voices and protest against injustice.
