Verification - what information is needed, really? Do we have misinformation?

There is a lot of debate going on about what information we have to give up to Verify ourselves for SecondLife. In another thread someone pointed us at http://www.aristotle.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=113&Itemid=145 which is the information about the system that I believe will be used.

Assuming it as (and I admit that is an assumption), here is the information that SL residents will be required to provide to get validated:

USA: First name, Last name, DOB, Zip Code
UK, Australia, New Zealand: First name, Last name, DOB, Postal Code
Canada, Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Brazil: First name, Last name, DOB, Postal Code, Phone Number

No passport number, no Social Security Number or anything of the like. The information laid out here is publicly available and most probably would have a lot less trouble giving it out than the other stuff we are hearing about....

So first, could anyone who has already gone through the validation process confirm that this this is all that is required? This is not what LL said - for example they said that US residents would have to provide the last four digits of their SSN. So what is it, exactly?

It would be nice to reduce the hysteria a little with facts or what is really sufficient in order to validate....

The requirements that you have listed are the minimum requirements established by Aristotle as being adequate for verification.

However, for whatever the reason, currently it appears that LL believes it necessary for us to provide the additional information of last 4 of SS# for US residents, and passport #s for citizens of other countries.

Nice try at attempting to reduce the hysteria BTW

Hok, so you have verified and were forced to add this, or are you inferring this from LL's posts?

From LL posts.

I'm in the UK, I provided name, address and date of birth. There was a field for additional information with a choice of selection of passport or driving licence. I left that field blank and the system verified me.

Was that done under the test period when concierge accounts were given an option to beta test the system.

Does you profile now read Age Verified??

.

I have verified, using the beta system offered to the concierge customers. It was beta and the process may have changed, so I can only comment on what I saw.

1) they ask for name, address, city, state/province, zip/postal code, and country.

2) they ask for date of birth

3) they did not ask for phone number, there was not even a space for it

4) they did not ask for gender, there was not even a space for it (I mention this as some folks have been worried about it.)

5) they ask for some piece of ID relavent to your country. For Canada I believe it was the SIN (the full SIN not just four digits) or the drivers licence or the passport. For the UK it was drivers licence or passport. For USA it was last four digits of SSN, or drivers licence, I forget what else.

6) They did not outright say you only had to provide some info, or that some info was optional. eg. I was not given an option to leave the 'id number' blank, I had to select one of the 3 options and I had to put in a number. (Note - I don't know if it would have accepted if I'd left it blank, but I was not told that it was optional so I assumed I had to key in something.)

7) There is no change in the in-world profile and no change on the 'my account' page of the website, no indications at all of who has verified and who hasn't. In-world there is in fact nothing set up at the moment for verification. I believe there will have to be another mandatory client download at some point, so that the various flags and settings exist. Hopefully that too will be beta tested somewhere.

When I tried it originally it didn't work by the way, I was not verified. I called LL and spoke with them on the phone, they said there was a known issue with canada. By the end of the day it was fixed and I verified on my second attempt.

So they were definately using the feedback they got from the beta test and I suspect that when they roll it out to everyone it will have had some of the more glaring bugs fixed.

BTW I'm not a proponent of the whole scheme, some days I'm an opponent of it, most of the time I don't much care. It's coming, so we either have to accept it, or fight it. I'm too busy with other things to put up a fight.

-Atashi

Yes it was done under beta.

No my profile doesn't read Age verified. The only thing I can find is that when I click the age verification link in the "My account" page, it tells me I've already verified.

In that case I would not rely on it for the proposition that you will be able to get age verified without giving your passport number or whatever when the real deal comes into effect.

I'm verified, this was the real deal. They just haven't altered the client.

So what you are saying Hok is that we don't know one way or the other for sure what is going to be required when the system is no longer beta.

The link that I provided is not for an SL-specific validation scheme, but one that anyone can buy from the company. Unless LL have done something very specific to add requirements to that (and I don't see why they should, since Aristotle appears to be the one doing the validation), then it is just as reasonable to assume that the standard list of "Required"s apply, until we know for sure otherwise.

Everything else is speculation, and very emotion-laden speculation at that.

The "beta" experiences documented so far appear to back up what is on the website.

Here you go:

http://www.aristotle.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=113&Itemid=145

If you click the world map on the page linked above, it'll tell you what sort of identifying data you need to provide relative to the country you're from.

yes, Travis, that is where I got the information in the OP.

It is this prompting for additional information that they don't need for verification that should make everyone deeply suspicious (if not mildly hysterical).
Aristotle are exactly the type of operation that would engineer a form to make it appear that input is mandatory.
The Aristotle website referenced above indicated that national ID type information is 'Suggested' only.
If they don't need it for their level of 'verification', why do they ask for it?
--- They are on a fishing expedition. They hope that people will be misled into providing information that Aristotle is unable to get any other way.



All of this concern/hysteria over data protection entirely misses the point that this verification system does absolutely nothing to keep minors away from restricted content.
LL are trying to falsely sell it as protection and trust for residents, but it's solely an insurance policy for LL against the day that a parent sues them or some particularly bad publicity arises.

The price that we residents will pay for LL's PR insurance is
- unwitting exposure to legal action over access to our restricted content by minors that we were assured were verified adults
- a locust swarm of righteous volunteer thought police ARing everything they can find - not just because they can but because LL have asked them to root it out.

I think the comments about what LL are trying to do and what they can realistically achieve are valid ones. I just want to make sure that we are discussing that, rather than speculating about whether we have to give passport numbers, Social Security Numbers, etc.

What LL are trying to achieve I support in the main. Although the flagging parcels issue I think is a load of codswallop and they could have taken steps towards this already.

However I am very disappointed at them trying to sell the trust issue. That is extremely misleading and they should stop trying to tie this in with trust.

Well having let it all sink in for a while. Quite what LL are up to is a mystery to me.

If they wanted proper insurance against claims they'd have to insist everyone verified before they could log in. Then we wouldn't need parcel flags. As solutions go, I'd probably support that. Am guessing it would screen out some under age users, maybe a few griefers, and we could all get on with using the grid exactly as we have been doing.

If you have a system where you can move your camera 100's of meters away (as Torley helpfully pointed out to everyone) then having an adult verified only parcel and being verified adults doing rude things in it is no protection against minors seeing computer animated lewd acts or pictures of porn on the walls. So it becomes -=POINTLESS=-

Quite aside from the "should they / shouldn't they" arguments. The weird way it's being implemented is just ... ??? wtf ???

If it comes down to a choice between providing senstive ID info to LL or their contractor, or else being banned from all R-rated content, then I will be out of SL the day after this hits the ground. I have already put a moratorium on spending any further $$ in SL until I know how this shakes out. I am not opposed to age verification in principle to prevent minors from getting onto the main grid, but this whole approach seems incredibly convoluted and just plain stupid.

Oh, this is trust in the Orwellian doublespeak sense, i.e. words mean the reverse.

"You have been paying me several thousands of dollars by credit card over the last two years, but now I no longer believe you are who you say you are and demand you prove it."

Is that trust? No it's DIStrust.

Verification is all about distrust. It's about distrusting people. It's about creating an atmosphere of distrust where everyone is scared not to flag their land as adult because they are afraid that their rivals/ random griefers/ self-appointed vigilantes will AR them otherwise.

Whether or not one believes verification is needed, creating an implementation that relies on Stasi-like informers is a terrible thing to do, and passing it off as being about "trust" is an abuse of language.

This is a good post.


I havent really been against Verification. Although I have some reservations about some of the accusations leveled about the business deal with Integrity.

But I also am tired formal announcements that amount to neurotic Rationalizations on LL's part.

What would have been wrong with just saying "Our legal team and business managers have agreed this is good for continued business". They still might have gotten flak, but at least it would have been the TRUTH.

I think Daisy's view is quite accurate. In fact I'm gonna steal it. Well done.

I would have been fine with that. Daniels blog post came off as sounding pretty creepy..

/me nods.