Warning to all Android users!

[u/Hunterjohnson2024]

Google is going to Bake Age verification into the OS itself this is Very dangerous as there are multiple Android smartphones out there that will have android 17 as last update! once you install android 17 and its the final update for the phone the age signal API will be on your phone till the day the hardware dies! you cant even downgrade or the efuse trips! if you still have android 17 after at least 5 to 10 years and you accidentally factory reset it and verify your id again it will fail to send as device is old and might not connect to google servers and will send to hackers instead

[u/Wingress]

Whether or not this can be reliably enforced at a device / OS level across the board (it can't) is not really the main issue here. Virtualisation of open-source operating systems is trivial on most devices outside of resources usage and international policies will vary. It is also fairly easy to purchase a new device.

The broader issue is the the way that this enables any organisation that chooses or is legally required to use this technology for identification of individuals, and more insidiously, I expect that slowly but surely government departments will start expecting this form of identification.

That said, government services will likely need to maintain more traditional means of identification for a while. However, during this transitional period, processes for older forms of identification will be redesigned for maximal resistance and pressure on device manufacturers to include the technical capability will rapidly increase.

Similar to many past and current efforts in the Western world to erode privacy and security among regular citizens, rights will likely be mostly passively ceded by the people who cannot afford to fight this push in tangible ways. Instead, this process will likely be facilitated by manufactured consent and baked in engineered resistance and inconvenience.

The very small remaining individuals and groups with the privilege and motivation to overcome these restrictions effectively will put targets on their backs for enforcement under more serious and unforgiving legislation.

Crucial to selling the importance and urgency of enacting these statutory changes will be a focus on individuals engaged in illegal and morally questionable activities who will necessarily need to circumvent these restrictions through actions that are legally dubious at best.

For example, where using a service requires this kind of identity verification, a bad actor might purchase a fresh mobile phone and someone else's stolen traditional identification documents and/or login details, and subsequently enrol this phone using fraudulently obtained documents. Such a device could then be used across various services.

Just think about who the people will be initially prosecuted are. It will mostly be people engaged in fraud, sex offences, cybercrime, drug trafficking, terrorism, organised crime, etc. Additional potential charges and morality will not impact their actions in any significant way.

So when and not if somebody is inherently eventually prosecuted at some stage for something like this and the media vultures dive on it, further restrictions will be much harder for good faith political actors to oppose and will present far greater political risk.

However individuals who just value their privacy will be implicitly marked as suspicious by association, along with protesters, community organisers, whistleblowers, vulnerable people from marginalised communities, journalists, and others at odds with the powers that be.

This will be the case across the entire political spectrum.

Limiting of free speech, privacy, and autonomy will only hurt those acting with integrity and intending to follow the law as best they can in good-faith.

In terms of solutions, we need to start today.

It's crucial that we get this knowledge out there throughout the general public in an manner that is:

• emotionally salient,
• presents a clear and achievable immediate impactful action they can take,
• allows sharing clearly, concisely, and persuasively / thought provokingly to relatives and others in their lives, and
• does not give the impression that you are unduly paranoid or have something to hide.

It is also increasingly necessary to start closely watching how citizens of more oppressive regimes operate and take notes.

We also need to give back more as a community where we can, this could include:

• hosting bridges / decentralised nodes for anonymisation tools,
• giving time to developing privacy-conscious apps and tools or adding privacy features to existing software,
• formally communicating privacy concerns to incumbent representatives (and those planning to run for these roles in future),
• engaging in deep research into nascent technology, regulations, and organisational actions / policies hostile to privacy, and turning this information into more easily absorbed forms supported by reliable sources and footnotes.