Age verification

People, Stop.

Take a step back and think about what's happening.

MATURE sims can now be flagged ADULT or NO.

Because obviously Mature and Adult mean two totally different things, right?
I don't get this, I really don't. There has to be some sort of money incentive going down between LL and this uncertified political identity verification company that was JUST formed in 07, because really, what the hell is the point? By all legal standings, LL can sue *YOU* if your kid gets on the grid because he violated the ToS that *HE SIGNED* when making his account.

This is just stupid all the way around, I know i'm going to be verified as soon as the system comes out - and I also know eight of my best friends (One owns an island and the other a very large patch of mainland) will be gone because of all the stupid, un-needed additions LL keeps adding for no other reason then "Lawl, Cuz we can, and you're paying us."

This whole thing just makes me shake my head in disbelief because it won't do any good, and it's all just a lie... How is this protecting kids? They'll still have unverified accounts and any smart sim owner (That's not constantly getting griefed) will not flag their sim as adult (Unless it's a xxx store, obviously) because then they'd be LOSING BUSINESS, Why would you turn away potential customers?!

Also, I don't think anyone is looking at the big picture. It was already hard to join SL because most of my friends who I manage to even download the stinkin' thing log on to fly around for 10 mins, call the game retarded and leave. What am i suppost to say when they fly around for a half a minute before realising everything is blocked off and asks you for your SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER TO ACCESS THIS PLOT OF LAND.

Because, you know, every computer game should make you imput your social security number to play it, right? Won't someone please think of the children?

This is just a money grab in the end, nothing is stopping people from rezzing adult things or even wearing or selling their services on "Mature" sims that arn't labeled as "Adult"

But back to my original point, PG stands for PARENTAL GUIDANCE.
YOU HAVE TO BE OVER 18 TO JOIN SL.
IF YOU NEED TO ASK FOR YOUR PARENT'S PERMISSION WHEN YOU'RE 18 SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH YOU.
But it gets better, Mature is now different then Adult - Wait, what?

Someone explain to me the difference between the words "Mature" and "Adult" please... (And no, I don't mean the "SL" term.)

Edit: Also
All these people saying they're doing it for legal reasons:
WRONG

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Online_Protection_Act

"COPA required all commercial distributors of "material harmful to minors" to restrict their sites from access by minors. "Material harmful to minors" was defined as material that by "contemporary community standards" was judged to appeal to the "prurient interest" and that showed sexual acts or nudity (including female breasts). This is a much broader standard than obscenity and likely covers all hardcore and softcore pornography."
(Hence why they had to label things "Mature" or "PG" so they couldn't get sued.)

"On June 30, 2004, in Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union,[4] the Supreme Court upheld the injunction on enforcement, ruling that the law was likely to be unconstitutional. "

*Oops*

"On March 22, 2007, U.S. District Judge Lowell A. Reed, Jr. once again struck down the Child Online Protection Act,[7] finding the law facially violates the First and Fifth Amendments of the United States Constitution. Reed issued an order permanently enjoining the government from enforcing COPA, commenting that "perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if First Amendment protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection."[8]"

LL, Fire whatever goofy lawyer told you to do this, because the law is null and void now and you can't get sued if some dumbass kid gets on the grid.

You live in the land of the free. And yeah, it's still pretty damned free.

But no, there are legal issues, they just don't come from the USA. Ageplay as its played in SL with child avs is considered child pornography and is servicable by a 3-5 year jail term in Germany. The very same types of content that the Supreme Court has ruled as legal.

LL is being forced to comply with age verification if they want to be a global company, and that is their wish, and au contraire, now that they have offices in the UK, they are actually in Europe now, and possibly exposed to court actions by other EU countries. If they wanted to limit their customers to the USA, then you'd be right.

My RL is none of your or LL buisness, surprise surprise! my RL surname is not "Zelmanov" and while my RL surname was available for a while, it was not available when I signed up for SL. Nor would I have used it if it had.

What will we be required to verify next ? Nationality? Gender? Race? Sexual Orientation? Political Affiliations? Religion? will we be required to have the tag above our heads display a star of david if we are jewish ? If so what color will it be ? Yellow ? Maybe we can wear a patch on our jackets instead.
Ho-Hum ..... !
I'm sure that most of those using the "escort" services in SL would rather not know that the beautifull buxom woman they are paying their hard earned lindens to E-Xite themselves with, is in reality, an obese 30 something living at home in his parents basement! Likewise that cute neko they were getting a belly rub from last night is in reality probably not a real cat. My cat "can" type but it's spelling is even worse than mine! and I object to the keybord smelling of catfood afterwards. If 15 years from now,(when my cat is 18 and can have a Credit card of it's own) SL still exsists, and my cat wants to join, it can buy it's own damned computer.

I think it should be low enough that free account holders who aren't able to buy L can manage to pay it. There are quite a few of these and sometimes their reason is as simple as someone not wanting their spouse to see they've spent money online. Most of the people who have told me they are in this position are RL married women who do not have their own separate credit card, or college aged young people who are still under the thumb of a parent. These folks can benefit enormously from SL and should not be discouraged.

Meanwhile, to prevent a new wave of camping I'd encourage landowners, when they see the time has come, to set out (working, secure, one-time) money trees and load them liberally so that people can raise the money without begging.

I'd set it at L10, or about that order of magnitude. If it was small enough, I could set up a fund in my large group, Bisexuals in Second Life, to be sure everyone in the group who wants to be verified, can be. I'd encourage other large groups to do the same. In our case, this frees us to hold events in Adult locations without giving up being inclusive, which is the core goal of the group.

Well actually it is, you're lucky one person in 20 tip anything to a teacher after hours of effort and materials supplied.
We may just prevent cheapskates from entering Adult areas? Oh No!

Well if your spouse doesn't trust you, it's not LL problem.

*laughs* I do not know but its getting scary the amount of information collected. Linden Labs is getting sooo far off being what it was its not even funny. Time to step back and get a reality check. I would like to see credit cards needed period to register. More grid
resources. The basic stuff all working and, back the way it was before Linden Labs done lost their minds and gone in so many other directions. All we would like is a smooth grid
privacy, and a nice building system. Simple sweet and clean. Maybe even a movie player
that allows people to auto synch dvd. So people could watch movies togeather so forth.

Please RE-READ ROBINS POST V...E....R....Y S...L...O....W...L...Y

It pretty clearly says to me there will be 3 types of Land, PG, Mature and Adult.
Adult will only be where the Landowner selects it, up to them if they want their BDSM / Sexy Clothing / Skin store Mature or Adult.
I'm guessing the Brothel may have to be Adult, and the strip club? Well most operate as brothels as well anyway. Nude beach well, who knows?

Is someone captureing Underage Children and draging them into SL???
NO!
what we have is a few Underage people that are willing to Lie Cheat steal Moms Credit Card, Faulsify Documents or Hack their way into SL... THEY ARE THE PREDITORS.. lets not get this confused!
And No Matter what you do to stop this... YOU WILL FAIL.

The only thing SL can do is Police them. Once found in SL take action. Fine the Parents. after all they are Resposible for their children. Or should be.

Security is SL's Responsibility.. They are suposed to be watching the Door and stoping underage from getting in here.. Thats what I paid for when signing up for Membership of SL.
AGE VERIFICATION SHOULD BE FREE AND SL SHOULD BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY OF MY INFORMATION.

This New age Veification is no less EXTORTION For PROTECTION Mafia style.. Pay up or shut down.
This will hurt my business and nearly everyone elses buisness.

If SL is so worried about the Age problem in SL... Here is an Idea for them to concider.

Place a Parental control key in the interface so Parents can lock their children out.
Place the responsibility in the hands of the Parents.
If that child breeches that security ( and I am sure some will ) it falls on that Parent and not on SL

This is not age verification of the account holder, but age verification of the holder of the passport/SSN/DL. The two are not linked by default. This offers no legal protection to LL whatsoever. Even the claim that aristotle will insure against false positives does nothing to cover LL, as they will only pay out when they approve someone under 18, not when the details don't match an SL account.

The only way LL will achieve any kind of protection is through photo ID and seeing the account holder face to face. If that person then passes on the account to a minor, they become legally responsible.

Yes LL need to attempt to block minors, but this is not a valid attempt at that.




All this says is that you wont be blocked from mature sims by default. It does not say whether the "flag" for adult content will be seperate from the mature flag that already exists.

Thanks to the "fix" that was applied when mature search was broken, it is possible to have PG land in a mature sim simply by unticking the mature flag. If the adult flag is the same as the mature flag, we'll still have 2 types of land, PG and Mature, the 3rd type would actually be PG in Mature sims, exactly as we have now. Being unverified, you would only ever get access to PG land, whichever sim it was on.

To keep things simple, they should just fix the search "include mature" box (which I think they did) and stop listing anything on a mature sim as PG instead of creating an even bigger mess.

I have given credit card details to Linden labs.

I own 8 island estate sims. I do not beleive some under 18 years old could afford to pay for them.

Not only Well I not give my passport and ID number to LL's 3rd party group. It is not legial in my country to do so.

LL is asking for big trouble if they put this verification in. They are asking for the Goverments of the countrys such as mine to get involved.

the SL residents need stand up to LL and put stop to this none sense and let Linden labs know we will not stand for this kind of crap anymore.


It is time to put an end to this none sense that LL has been tossing at us for the past 5 months.

It's not so much that their spouse doesn't trust them, as that their spouse doesn't see spending money on Second Life as a sensible thing to do. Worse, some people are very controlled or monitored by their spouse, and going online when no one is looking is the only freedom they have. I personally think that's a stupid way to live, but I couldn't tell someone with small children and no job skills to run out and get a divorce just so she can have her own wallet. Marriage is often hell because too many people (men and women both) are abusive selfish jerks. There's a reason I'd rather be single, even if I wind up spending my old age alone.

I can see a lot of people who are in SL without the knowledge of their spouse, freaking out by verification and leaving even if there's no risk of getting caught out by it. I share the very valid privacy concerns but I think the firestorm in the forum right now is creating a lot of misinformation.

Verification would probably be a good thing for me personally, *IF* it's done right. It would allow my group to grow in both the X and PG directions without so much worry.

I hope you know what your getting into your going to have goverments such as mine down your neck as giving my pasport or ID numbers to you or your 3rd party group is against the law in my country.

god help them if the tabloid press ever notice ageplay in second life. the legality of it would be the least of their worries. every front page would carry a superbold OMFG headline and braindead vigilantes up and down the country will start lynching paediatricians again.

It generates some great satire though.

ummhmm this is clearly very illegale to even ask for the last four numbers of SS# when if you know were the person was born and when you can easly figgure out what the other numbers are... with giving your name and address what lovely pluse for some to take advatage of us.

No wrong quote, read another post by Robin, search and ye shall find, if we didn't have 30 damn age verification threads open this would be easier for everyone to see rather than getting all caught up in one branch of the tree. But I'm only jumping on the beds, didn't make them.

The only universal way to verify somebodys idenity (in the western world) is by their social security number and no government in the western world is going to make that information available to any company, let alone a company in a forign country. They are not allowed to by their own laws. If you surender that information you will in most cases be breaking the laws of the country in which you reside including the united states(or so I am led to beleive).
So how exactly is this 3rd party going to be able to verify the identy of anybody at all?

Somebody said earlier that they allready have this infornmation. BS... the only organisation that has my SSN is the UK government and they are realy paranoid about the security of that information. It is not available to any non governmental organisation.

So what other information can this 3rd party use?
What if you don't have a national Identity scheme in your country ? we don't in the UK.
What if you don't posses a passport ? Most americans don't.
What if you don't own a car or posses a drivers liecence? I can walk anywhere I need to go in under 15 mins. And have an excelent public transport network to get me anywhere I can't reach by walking.
What if you are not regestered to or entitled to vote in your country of residence ? In the UK and Ireland you are not under any obligation to register to vote it's your choice, it's Not compulsory.
So again where is this database that we are all on ?

Why are there PG regions anyway? I thought you had to be over 18 to be on the main grid in the first place? As an adult if I come accross something that ofends me I have the genetic hardware to deal with it. I can turn my head and or close my eyes. nowhere in any of theses threads has anybody stoped to think about what they are saying. most have blindly accepted that this is going to happen and are bitching about the potential cost in $L. Screw the cost just get rid of the damned kids and stop trying to sanitise what is an adult space.

Linden Labs advertise this as an adult service, it either is, or, it isn't. And if it's not then they have falsly advertised it as such. As an adult I am perfectly entitled to view adult material, this is suposed to be an adult service and Linden labs have accepted my money based on that assertion. Now they are saying that it is not the case. I feel riped off.

Is the real intention to open up the main grid to under 18's ?
If so I think we should be told. If so merge the grids and make all land PG and be done with it. And stop advertising it as an adult space. If Linden Labs have actualy given up on trying to keep them out, fine, then merge the grids and we adults will retreat to private invite only islands. Where we will be responsible for verifying the age (not Identity) of those we chose to invite, not Linden labs. Most teens are rumbled within the first few minutes by the general population anyway. The access and ban list already provide us with the means of enforcing such a policy.

some of this information is inaccurate.

1. You dont' have a SSN in the UK, you have a National Insurance Numbercard.
   
2. You cannot verify a person's identity with a NIN, so it's far from being "the only universal way to verify somebodys idenity". In fact it's no way to do so at all.
   
3. It must be available to non governmental organisations if you ever want to work legally because your employer needs to enter your NI number on the form they send to HMRC at the end of each tax year.
   
4. It seems unlikely Integrity will use the NIN for identification, given reason #2 above. There are many threads about this if you care to search, and it seems likely to me they'll use freely available electoral roll data to 'match' your details (but I could be wrong).
   

All of these points can be confirmed here.

We are told that the age verification will be voluntary....fine...I refuse to volunteer.

I am a sim owner...I will not give my SS# to LL...I have adult parcels in my sim...so basically LL will be blocking me from my own property...can I assume that they will no longer be charging me tier because I can no longer access the service and areas I am paying for thru no fault of my own?

LL...if you go through with this...you will see something you dont expect...sl will stop growing...people will leave it...and I dont blame them.

LL states that the information will not be kept permanently...baloney...and I am shocked that LL would lie like this...they cant assure anyone of this fact...since any data that has ever been entered into any hard drive anywhere can be recovered unless the specific drive clusters have been overwritten after deletion of the original data, which is a process which cant be controlled...LL nor this third party has any control over whether our data will ever be totally deleted.

I propose that we have 5/11 day in second life...everyone that is against the age verification as proposed by linden labs boycott the spending of any money in the game on May 11, 2007. No buying or selling of lindens...no buying or selling of land...no spending of anything in second life. Show them what a ghost town they will be creating with this plan.

Temporal Mitra

Lucy is my hero of the day.. Discrepancies over SSN/NIN aside. It is absolutely possible to go through life here in the States without a Passport (I don't have one) and a Driver's License (My mother has neither). Up until about 20 years ago it was possible to even get through life without a SSN,If you wprked "Off the books". I too expected SL to be an adult world. If this is not the plan, let me know. I will divest myself of my SL posessesions and go elsewhere.

Interesting change of direction for the thread, Robin. A cynic would probably think it was purposeful while a Psy-Ops facilitator would applaud it as strategic. Im curious though as to why comments to the original blog entry were cut off at 100 thus forcing the membership to create additional threads (which are spread all over the place) just to continue the discussion. Would seem to make more sense to keep it all in one place for easy reference.

As to the question posed above, I'm curious as to why, "they don't pay for other aspects of the service" should have any bearing on the rate charged for verification as a free account is supposed to be free ... that is unless the fees charged for verification do not totally all go to the third party verifier. Of course the basic accounts don't pay for other aspects of the service but to point that out in a thread that seems to have paying customers as the majority of posters (assumed) seems intentionally purposeful as well.

Maybe I'm just getting paranoid in my (unverified as yet) old age but one thing I do know is word usage and it's application for cause and effect. Still, thanks to both of you Lindens for taking the time to post, at least it gives us the illusion -- if nothing else-- that our concerns are truly considered as opposed to just given lip service to.

they will just need to watch what you do in sl and add that to the data they allready have. not saying that LL or "integrity" (lol the name is the best in this) will or want to do this.

I need to know a few things. Now.

My private island owner has already expressed that they will not be divulging personal info to be verified. I will not diverge my info. Should I plan now to abandon SL?

I've kept my paying account so I could keep my original 512 plot. That plot now faces several porn site 16m adverts. Will those adverts be removed, or will I? I would like an answer now, so I can decide if I need to just drop my Premium Membership, since I won't be able to access that land once you put this mess into effect, unless it's the porn site adverts that will have to go. If it's going to be me that will be blocked from my land because of those adverts, I'd like to know now, TODAY, please.

Hell, if I have to leave SL, I will be very sad. I've found a place to create and free up my artistic side. I've brought in friends and family far from me in RL, and we visit and shop and have fun together.

I was on that land long before those adverts were there, so who's going to get blocked, LL? It's going to me me, isn't it? You are going to block me from my own land because some greedy porn pusher moved in the neighborhood and I can see the adverts from my land.

Holy crap.

I am going to bring up a few things that I am unsure were posted on this forum thread. Before I do so I want to say that I have no issue with helping to protect children from getting on the Adult Grid nor do I have a problem with getting my age verified.


1) This was taken directly from their web site:

IntegritynSite

Advances in counterfeiting technology have made it increasingly difficult for the naked eye to distinguish legally issued documents from fake ones. However, nearly all government issued identification is encoded with data contained within a magnetic stripe and/or two dimensional barcode. Using Integrity OnSite hand-held terminal, users can instantly read and validate this information thereby identifying documents that may be tampered with or fraudulently altered.

Integrity OnSite is used in a variety of applications across many industries:

* Financial Institutions will often utilize Integrity OnSite at multiple customer touch points including the teller window, new account desk or loan services. Its benefits extend beyond its ability to detect and mitigate possible identity fraud by performing documentary verification as defined in the USA PATRIOT Act (Section 326).
* Government Agencies and Law Enforcement use Integrity OnSite to quickly detect potentially counterfeit or altered forms of identification, verify age, or provide access control to secure facilities.
* Security Companies use Integrity OnSite any place a driver’s license is checked to verify identity prior to building access. Integrity records a time and date stamp of every visitor, verifies the identity of the individual and speeds the process. Integrity OnSite is relied upon by the nation’s largest security firms to protect facilities such as nuclear power plants, airports and office buildings.
* Advertising Agencies, the Hospitality Industry and Event Marketers use Integrity OnSite and Integrity OnLine to collect consumer information and verify the age of those being served alcohol or tobacco. Integrity is unconditionally guaranteed to comply with all state and federal regulations governing the sale of age-restricted products online and on premises.

2) I checked the privacy policy on Integrity/Aristotle's web site and it does state that they do not give out your information to third parties. It always goes into that they have all the protections needed to keep your information safe.

Here is that information from the privacy policy:

Privacy Policy

Privacy Statement for http://integrity.aristotle.com/

Integrity, a division of Aristotle International, Inc. has created this privacy statement in order to demonstrate our firm commitment to privacy. The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices for this website: http://integrity.aristotle.com/

Our site's registration form requires users to give us contact information (like their name and email address). We use customer contact information from the registration form to send the user information about our company. The customer's contact information is also used to contact the visitor when necessary.

Our site uses an order form for customers to request information, products, and services. We collect visitor's contact information (like their email address) and financial information (like their account or credit card numbers). Contact information from the order form is used to send orders and information about our company to our customers. The customer's contact information is also used to get in touch with the visitor when necessary. Financial information that is collected is used to bill the user for products and services.

Security
This site has security measures in place, including server password and firewalls, to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control.

Confidentiality of Information/Correction
This site does not provide visitors' information to third parties.

This site gives users the following options for changing and modifying information previously provided:

E-mail to: [email]remove@aristotle.com[/email]

Contacting the Web Site
If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of this site, or your dealings with this Web site, you can contact:

Brian Williams
Aristotle International, Inc.
205 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE
Washington, DC 20003
E-mail address: brian.williams ((at)) aristotle.com

3) I checked BBB.org for any reports on Integrity/Aristotle and there was none. Why are their none?? Because they are not listed with the Better Business Bureaus in California.

So let me say this... if they are not listed with the BBB they how do we know that they are a good company. I say that if Second Life wishes us to help them by giving up information I will do so but not to a company that is NOT listed under the Better Business Bureau.

4) One last thing... it is illegal to be asked for your SS#. No company can tell you that you have to give out that number.... that is why the giving of the information is optional. They are basically telling you that you do NOT have to give out the last 4 digits of your Soc Security Number but if you do not then you will not be able to go into the mature adult areas. Alot of people do not seem to understand the term "MATURE or ADULT". Basically for those that are too ignorant to understand it is ANYTHING SEXUAL in NATURE. That includes anything that involves you being naked, having sex, drunk, watching XXX porn and the list goes on and on. So no more penises out and about and no more running around with it attached to your head. No more gambling unless you are in a Mature-Adult sim..... etc etc

Isn't that a bit unrealistic though? We all know the main grid is supposed to be for adults only, but we're also aware there are plenty of minors on it. I was annoyed when credit card verification was dropped on Jun 6th last year, and have no objection to age verification measures being reintroduced ASAP. What I do have a problem with is the credentials and intentions of the third-party company being used, and the information they require.