Age Verification - The Residents Strike Back

Walking around SL earlier on I was given an item by an anti age-verification group I'm a member in. The item is called Agelock, and it works by combining a security orb type script with an offsite reference script.

Visitors to land with Agelock running on it will have their names scanned against a database Agelock keep, which contains just three pieces of information about an avatar. Their name, their date of birth and the magical checkbox they've agreed to check that says "Yes, I'm over 18." If they refuse to give this information, they'll be asked to leave. If they haven't left within two minutes the security orb part of the script will cut in and eject them using the teleport home option.

This again shifts responsibility to the individual avatar, rather than the land owner, and asks for nothing more than the same kind of "good faith" agreement that has been held binding for viewing adult content sites on the web.

As such, I think it's a good idea. I also think that Linden Labs won't go for it. Or at least won't abandon their own plans to use Aristotle/Integrity for age verification.

And I do still have a real issue with Aristotle/Integrity. For a start, I can see a million ways I could cheat the system. I hold a photocard license within Canada, but because of a change of address I actually have two licenses. And when they changed my address they failed to put the correct information on the new address, but since misaddressed mail gets put on the windowsill in my apartment block to be sent back in bulk by management, I still picked up the new license even though the details on it are wrong.

According to their site, the information required in Canada is first name, last name, date of birth, postcode and telephone number. Well, let's see now. I can go out to a store, buy a prepay phone and give false details to activate it, so that's no proof. I can make up a first name and last name, so that's no proof, and as long as my DOB is convincing how do they check it? As well, since I recently moved and could quite easily use my old postcode (even assuming I didn't use the net to look up a valid postcode and use that) so those details could be false too.

Which essentially leaves them with the checkbox that I effectively ticked when I agreed that yes, I was over 18 so they could go ahead and verify me. All the other details might be false. What kid do YOU know that can't worm that information out of an adult given the opportunity?

What I AM providing with the Aristotle/Integrity method is statistics for them to sell to political entities, who could use them anyway they damn well please. All I'm effectively doing for Linden Labs is allowing someone else to say "She's telling the truth" - which itself, to me, implies that Linden Labs by default will assume I'm a liar, this despite the fact that they have my credit card information and have successfully billed it in the past.

There is effectively no difference in the information Agelock is asking and the information Aristotle is asking, except Aristotle ask for much more information and advertise that they collect this specifically to sell to political entities. I would be extremely surprised if with my recent immigration and the chaos that the lost paperwork entailed, Aristotle/Integrity could get a perfect answer on me... but I'm certainly not willing to give them an opportunity to then sell that information to the highest political bidder.

To close, let me link a video that is actually published by Integrity for the purposes of drumming up business selling the information they are planning to use Linden Labs to collect. It's quite frightening just how much they are prepared to pimp out the information they get.

Agelock is a nice system, but I can't see LL using it. Integrity is not. Judge for yourself if you think your information is safe with them.