Age Verification is here!!

The release notes for 1.14 in April of this year documents that they added the mature content flag to distinguish parcels that actually have mature content on it, versus just being in a mature sim. The only question is if there is a difference between "mature" content and "adult" content, as Colette said.

Yes, and a similar transition was my initial concern, but then i decided i was being paranoid.

To be specific, the island i live on is marked "mature", presumably so that we can have poseballs, and it would be most disappointing if i suddenly could not go there when age verification is implemented. Since i distrust Integrity quite a bit (see post #21, I will not be verifying until I see how it plays out.

But that is going to be such a common scenario that i'm sure we'll have hashed it all out by the time verification goes live. Personally, I think the simplest solution would be to add a 'restricted' flag, defaulted off.

Well theres also this possibility

-theres only one flag.
-Its gotten used twice for two different band aids without looking at the overall picture.

IF the mature content flag is the adult content flag you can STILL get 3 levels of content.

If your land is listed in "Places" you can only have 2 levels - PG and Adult becuase your listing is based on when you check the flag - you are assuring peopel your content is PG or not.

But if you arent listed in "Places" Mature land is allowed to contain non PG but also non Adult content (like possibly Nudity) Since you arent in listed places the PG requirement is not there for Mature land even if the flag is not checked.



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Im saying this based on context of how the discussion evolved, and what they have not said.

Its quite possible Robin and Dan Linden were not considering the VERY RECENT use of the Mature Flag as a band aid for the places listing when they came up with their Age verification plan.

Becuase they were in a hurry - and it literally all hapenend at once.

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If they were going to have seperate Mature and Adult Flags

Why not mention that fact?

Especially when directly asked. (by more than just me)

This is the most likely scenario.

Desmond,

As a UK resident, at the moment, even if i was a concierge customer i would be unable to verify for reasons that have been expounded here over and over.

I asked you this once before:-

If verification comes in as it is mooted at the moment, with no means of acceptable verification for UK residents, will you be flagging your sims 'Adult', which will mean i have to leave Caledon, as i wont be allowed on my own land at SteamSkyCity?

You answered then that you would not. How is it today?

Forgive me Strife, if this sounds like a discussion, but this is of real importance to me, and i am sure many other residents of not only Caledon, but other estate sims and sim groups.

sincere regards
imogen

I know you're addressing Desmond but do you mean you don't have a driving licence or a passport? I mean that wouldn't be uncommon really and is something I hadn't considered as I have both forms of ID.

Just as a note, I know that some users from the UK already _have_ verified.

You are a concierge customer and know these are the only two options because you've seen them with your own two eyes?

See - Lisa said DL and passport number too, but if she owns less than half a sim she's not a concierge customer so I figured she was speculating.

Regarding government recommendations: Integrity has a UK HQ, and therefore a data operator license. Unless they state they're exporting the data you provide, no DPA caution exists. If they export it without telling you so, it would probably be trivial to get Integrity's data operator license revoked.

Despite all this, they can do sod all with UK DL and/or Passport data, because there are zero records available to cross-check them against. If they claim to be verifying the identity of any UK citizen with this information, well frankly they're taking the piss.

Sorry Ciaran. Only just saw this. I guess you are a concierge customer then. One who just witnessed an attempt to extract yellow coloured fluids apparently.

Thanks. It's a mystery what they do with that data. Combine it with your name, address and DOB to print new driving licenses and passports for illegal immigrants perhaps? They sure ain't confirming anybody's identity with it.

Yes I'm a concierge customer and I have the age verification link, I've just checked again to ensure I'm not talking balderdash and when I select "United Kingdom" the only options available are driving licence and passport number.



I'm awaiting some information from a Linden regarding the DPA. Whether I get the information is of course another issue as they may not have the answer.



Now this is interesting because I had a similar conversation with someone else who suggested the process isn't that clever at all, hence you could be right!

I just ran a test. Either they rejected my deliberately-transposed passport number, or they just rejected my surname (a not at all uncommon event with my surname).

It's time to leave SL now I guess. Sadly, but necessary. In my country we've always been tought to never, ever give out ID-info to companies, just authorities.

The present time is full of identity-thefts and similar. I think you run a huge risk by giving out such information to a third party. This is only a type of game anyway and I would never give out info like this unless it would be for surviving or something really important. SL isn't important even though it's a wonderful world to spend some of your sparetime in, as a hobby. But giving out ID info, never.

I've read about people who had their identities stolen after giving out info to people and companies they thought they could trust. That can truly ruin the rest of one's life. I've learned by reading that, learned to not walk in their footsteps and make the same mistake.

Protect your ID and protest strongly against this.

It's up to all parents to protect their children from the internet, SL etc. Why do you put your kids in front of the computer with a web connection at all? The parents are responsible for taking care of their kids, not SL.

You don't use credit cards in your country?

Of course we do. What does this have to do with it at all?

Don't put a credit card in your kid's hands. It's all up to the parents just like you wouldn't put your kid behind the wheel in a car as it would be stupid and cause an accident.

Thanks again Ciaran.

I'm calling the Information Commissioner's Office tomorrow because there's something fishy going on here, something which appears to put Integrity Services (UK) Ltd. in breach of their data operator's license.

For example: Any data controller in the UK must be able to answer yes to a number of questions about the data they're requesting, and I don't see how they could even get past the first two:

* Do I really need this information about an individual?
* Do I know what I'm going to use it for?

http://www.ico.gov.uk/what_we_cover/data_protection/your_legal_obligations.aspx

The answer is (i) NO they do not need the information they're requesting because (ii) that information serves no useful purpose whatsoever.

NO public database of driving license and passport numbers exists, except for use by the police and certain government departments, therefore Integrity can not cross-check against such information for UK users.

According to Robin, this is definitely a cross-check against public records process:


As this is definitely not the case here, one wonders what Integrity *is* doing with this information? Something innocent? Something nefarious? I'll suspect the latter until proven otherwise because this whole implausible setup hardly engenders trust.

Any other Brits concerned about this potential misuse of data?

Contact the Information Commissioner's Office on 08456 30 60 60.
01625 54 57 45 if you're in Warrington.

But you're not giving them any new information; you're corroborating information that they already have.

As a victim of identity theft, this sorta scares me... I had someone work under my name, get credit under my name, even get me a nice arrest warrant in my name. How they got all my information to do so, I have no idea, but I am sure it wasn't hard. Every company I pay a bill to has all my information, SS#, DL#, DOB, address, etc. Why would LL be any different? What DOES bother me, is they are using a third party to handle it =/

The third party mentioned in this thread certainly don't have any ID data about me and will never have.

THIS is EXACTLY what I warned about above. Don't EVER provide anyone but authorities (governmental) with such information!

VERIFIED CANADIAN

Tried my drivers license - no dice.
Tried last for of SIN as last 4 of SSN - nope.
No passport (yet, its in the mail).

I used my SIN as the identity card choice and it worked.

Now I'm not too worred about it, but in Canada the only people you EVER have to give your SIN to is your employer and CCRA. Having it as the only way to age verify in SL if you are in Canada is going to open up a whole can of worms.

Well because, if you use it over the phone you're trusting the person on the other end not to steal your identity. If you use it online you're trusting the company on the other end not to steal your information.

I just verified my age and it worked, but this is is actually very disturbing because the information I had to give shouldn't have been known by anybody. I was very surprised to see that my verification passed so i want to know where they did get my information from as my ID card is fairly new. The only people that know those numbers are my employer, my bank and the authorities. Where does that database come from? Who provided this information?

Btw LL. Can you confirm by sending us a written letter by traditional snail mail, that you will guarantee and take responsibility that we will not run any risk whatsoever if we provide you with this information? Blog posts and emails won't count as a confirmation note. You'll have to send letters to all residents. You'll also have to get insurances to protect yourselves if any residents would get in trouble in the future somehow although you've confirmed they won't and refund them for any expenses and troubles that follows for example an identity theft.

Can you also guarantee that the transmission of the ID data won't be picked up by any spyware or malware within anyone's computer? If I type ID data or if the third party does it, there's always a risk it will be picked up by such malware and you know this.

The more you spread your ID info around, the more risks you take, simple as that.

Credit cards (at least in the US) have a very limited loss liability to the card holder -- one of the reasons why the issuing banks are so quick to turn down transactions from certain vendors that they suspect (as has been noted in many threads here).

Identity theft is something else altogether, is much broader, and has no liability limit like a stolen credit card number has.

I mean that the giving out of such information is NOT recommended in the UK. We are told NOT to give this information to organisations that dont need to have it.

I have both passport and drivers license. I don't propose to give then to Aristotle, and thereby to the US government to flag me in the US, supposedly, as a person that wants to look at porn.

imogen