New FCC Proposal 🚨 Phone companies will be allowed and required to keep a copy of all American’s government issued ID on file
Whenever you buy or activate any new phone service like a regular phone, iPhone, prepaid phone, even an extra SIM card, the company would have to:
- Scan and record your government ID (like driver’s license or passport).
- Get your real name and address.
- Ask for a backup phone number tied to you.
They’d keep these records on file
The FCC already issued a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to strengthen “Know Your Customer” requirements for voice service providers
This is meant to fight robocalls but what it actually does it far worse. We don’t want a copy of our government IDs with phone carriers
I’m actually a child online safety expert and was one of the pioneers in this space with Club Penguin and so I feel uniquely positioned to critique this.
The groomer problem is real but it’s also vastly overstated. The far larger issue we saw at Penguin was suicidality or reports of sexual abuse in the home.
There is no solution for lazy/bad parenting. You can implement all the ID laws you want but if parents are going to just hand kids their phones unlocked, those kids will have access to all the same things the parents have unfettered.
What I found is that these draconian safety laws actually make it harder to be an honest operator of kids apps because on one hand it’s so much legal risk and so much user friction that it simply becomes uninvestible as a business.
Parents will just lie to let their kids use the unfettered internet. For example, I have a friend who works in mobile gaming who has two kids, one above and one below the age limit but separated by just 2 yrs, and the two wanted to play and chat together on Roblox - which is reasonable. To do this, he just verified that his younger kid is old enough for the chat feature when he’s not.
This happens all the time and will happen with these laws to. How far do we want to go with this? Scan the face of the user in real-time to make sure it’s not a kid using the device? We could do that but it feels like a massive unwanted intrusion of privacy.
That’s how you know this law isn’t about kids. COPPA and GDPR-K and so forth already make it illegal to allow chat and other grooming vectors to kids.
What’s really being done here is trying to eliminate online anonymity. And this is a far bigger issue that goes to core speech rights because if you cannot criticize the govt anonymously and if wrong speech is a crime then it becomes easy to identify all the detractors of the govt in power, and ban, fine or jail them for speech crimes.
Starmer has already been doing this and he wants to do it at a much bigger scale. Starmer won’t even acknowledge the problem of actual grooming gangs in Britain’s neighborhoods but he’s worried about online grooming?
No he’s not, and this hypocrisy gives away the game. What he wants is to kill online anonymity so he can enforce censorship of his unpopular policies. No politician should have this power.
here's what will happen.
- u16 ban passes, platforms must verify all ages
- kids use VPNs, government bans VPNs
- age verification infrastructure already exists, its scope gets broader, more invasive, more extreme
- Online Safety Act forces backdoors into encrypted messaging, E2E encryption dies, gov can read everything you ever send
- CBDC rolls out, your internet passport and financial passport become the same document
- anonymous accounts posting "wrongthink" are now identifiable + prosecutable
- the generation that grows up with this doesn't remember it being any other way
- George Orwell was right about everything
- it's over
@whale6x I need a few thousand to take care of some kittens we found and their parents, and now the mom and babies dumped at my mom's. For anyone who can help:
https://t.co/ZPDXKprInz
It’s up to us Gen X (& older Millennials) to oppose Digital ID. The generations that followed were brought up with computers, the internet - and the habit of sharing data freely - and they simply do not understand the concept of privacy like we do. The silver lining is that they are trying to introduce digital ID while there are still enough of us around who are totally aware of the risks and what it means for future generations.
People *need* to understand this: the under-16 bans hit adults too.
Whether you’re 15 or 55, your ability to speak freely and anonymously online is at risk.
This. Isn’t. Just. About. Teens.
Once they can verify who you are online, they no longer need police, courts, or judges to punish you, there’s no arrest, no trial, no physical prison cell.
You’re already inside the system, they just decide when to lock your cage, your bank account gets frozen, your ability to travel gets restricted, your carbon allowance runs out so you can’t buy fuel or meat, your social score drops because you said the wrong thing and suddenly you can’t buy, sell or even speak, you are cut off.
This is how they skip the entire legal system and go straight to total compliance, Agenda 2030, 15-minute cities, personal carbon credits, social credit all of it becomes enforceable the second this digital ID infrastructure is in place.
They’re not protecting your kids, they’re building the prison that your kids are going to grow up inside.
The difference between a conspiracy theory and the truth is time and time is running out.
credit @wideawake_media@ALEXNEWMAN_JOU
🐾 Hoomans call it Hug Day.
We call it a regular Wednesday. 😼
Cuddles, purrs, head boops, and absolutely no respect for personal space.
Happy Hug Your Cat Day from the DevCats team! 💜
@horton_tin78514@JamesMelville Yours. Everything you say and do. That's why the big push for 'online safety' aka no anonymous internet. Id at the OS level on your phone and computer. So now everyone you talk to, what you say, where you go, what you do can all be logged and cross referenced.
Would you like to safely send something to me or the kitties? https://t.co/xkMGp7tLXK to see my current wishlist. You can also suggest something new. It's a great, safe way to add to the fun! https://t.co/udvwr36RXs
⚠️ Most people still don't get it. In 6 months your new car with be a data harvesting machine.
It will collect:
-Risk scores
-Attention data
-Behavioral profiles
-Location + routine patterns
Your car won’t just watch you...
It will monitor you, rate you, and monetize you.
MullvadVPN about age verification for social media:
"[...] politicians seek to massively invade everyone’s privacy and undermine democratic rights [...] they do not want to protect children; they want to impose control."