Goodbye World -I want to get off???

Guess again. From that veryy same site:

"Federal law does not prohibit a merchant or other business from requesting your SSN. However, there is no state or federal law that requires you to provide your SSN to any entity not authorized by law to require it. Businesses, private agencies, etc. are free to request your SSN and use it for any purpose that does not violate state or federal law."

Basically, they are free to ask, and you are free to decline.

Just wondering if anyone could give examples of information of this nature being required online in other situations. If I can see this is a common and acceptable practice in other online situations I probably won't have so much of a problem with it. I only ask because, in my experience, I have never seen anything require more than my CC info to prove my age/identity.

Thank goodness you have pointed this out.
And thank goodness we live in countries that protect our rights - some people on line think it is quite normal to demand passport and S.I.N. #s!!

They have SS# as an option. You can choose one of the other methods, I believe?

Its technically incorrect to use SS# as identification period - since it was specifically excluded from that purpose when it was introduced in the 1930's. However this is how it evolved and its what its used for.

Well, let's see. One of my online brokers requires me to sign in with my social security number. And my university uses my SSN to verify my identity in some contexts. I've also been asked for my SSN by a bank to establish online banking (I already had accounts with the brick-and-mortar branches of the bank). Then there's the FAFSA (for applying for financial aid for education).

Hmm, I wonder what would happen if I decided to feed them bad data. At least in some countries, passports aren't computerized. One of mine is even hand-written, if you can believe it.

Note, however, that credit card companies prohibit the use of their cards for age verification. Great for billing, not for determining user age. Visa's merchant guidelines says:


And everyone upset about the company SL is using should read THIS: http://www.ftc.gov/privacy/coppa2/comments/aristotle.htm

This is interesting:


The more I read, the less concerned I am about how this will work. Not that I was freaked out to begin with. Just curious really. I really wish people would learn and investigate before getting so wound up.

What I know is that one of aristotle's business lines is selling personal information, at least to US political parties who are canvassing for votes and/or donations. The only reason I can see that SSN and passport numbers aren't explicitly listed as something they sell there (they have an impressive laundry list of personal information they do sell) is that it probably has no commercial value to their main customers.

But there is no doubt in my mind right now that this would, be used to aid in building a profile of me so that they could sell data about me in future. Nowhere in their site do they say this kind of data will not used in such a way, or sold outright, after all.

This of course is ignoring the possibility that their database won't be compromised by the US homeland security laws, let alone hackers.

I do know I have no interest in giving any personal inormation to a company whose main busines sis selling personal information.

bye people, there is no way they will get that data from me

Thanks for the answer (not sure about the intended tone of the "Well, lets see", my sarcasm detector is on the fritz lately but its helpful nonetheless). If your SSN is like my passport details then fair enough but my University never needed that for online use, nor the funding body for my student fees and my bank/credit cards never asked for it either. Maybe it also depends on your country, not being from the US or having an SSN I can't know if such requests are acceptable. I just think that requesting my passport info is a bit odd since its never been asked for from anyone else outside of face to face job interviews. I guess I have some reading to do before the fortnight is up.

Yes Gillian, in the US banks and lending companies DO require you SSN to open any kind of account with them. Universities and colleges use it too. Though the SSN was never meant to be a national ID in the US, it has evolved into one.

Everyone, LL didn't say that ALL of these things WOULD be required, they just gave a list of what is accepted by the age verification service:

To me this implies that the verification service is fairly flexible in what they can use.

I haven't tracked down yet what stuff is required by the supposed service, Integrity, but I'm digging.

................

Umm you seem to be overly impressed.

Read further and you will see that the system referred to as approved for use by the District Court ONLY REQUIRES NAME AND ADDRESS. IT DOES NOT REQUIRE SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS !!!!!!!!!!!

..

WRONG !!!!!!

In the USA there is no choice of what is required: USA residents must give them last four digits fo their SS Number.

FROM the Q n A

"How will it work?

Residents will provide a few simple details about their identity – generally, name, date of birth, and address. US Residents will be asked to provide the last four digits of their Social Security Number, while non-US Residents may need to provide a passport or national ID number."

My social security number is actually printed on my passport. And where I live a passport is meant by the government not only as identity verification to government officials, but to whomever it might concern, including companies I deal with who want (or are obligated by law) to confirm I am who I say I am.

I'm starting to think passports and SSNs in different countries are as comparable as apples and oranges.

So opt out, don't do it. Simple.

Hmmm, So How are we going to Give Them THIS information?

There Is No Way I'm Putting out my Social Security Number Out Online....
Even if it is the last digits..


I Also have a basic account which I PAID For when you had to have a credit card to sign up.... I don't want to have to pay the same amount as Everyone who got the same account I got that I had to pay for...

And LL already Has my credit card what more do they need? that's what all the porn sites need... CREDIT CARD, not your whole.. Everything!

That's what I'm doing. Opting out... of the whole damn thing. They want to fence off where I can go? They want to change the rules on me? Fine, that's their right. I'm not going to give them any more money for the priveledge, though. If keeping my private info private means that I can't go everywhere I want to anymore, I see no point in going anywhere in SL anymore. So long, folks... my account goes poof as of tomorrow.

wow, two years in the game, and this is my first (and last) post.

It's so simple in the UK... check name, address and date of birth against the electoral roles and then you have your answer. No need for me to divulge passport numbers etc, which there is no way on earth I am going to do...

Banks in the UK require identification when you open an account, however I did that in person, I didn't send my details to them over the internet. That's a big difference.

A bank in the UK is also subject to the data protection act, are Integrity subject to that?

What's in this for Integrity? They aren't doing this for the love of it.

Then we'll have to see what happens to the economy. Those who say they don't visit adult places shouldn't be so flippant about the whole issue. Some of your customers may be adult workers, if they lose their jobs, you lose your income too. If an adult worker rents land and has a house, without their job they're not renting land, they're not buying clothes, they're not buying furniture yadda yadda yadda.

I want children off of the grid but the fact that we have all these unverified accounts in world is because LL wanted to expand SL as fast as possible. Well now we have 6m people signed up and suddenly LL want us to age verify. Talk about shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

In the almost 3 years I've been in SL I have always had paid membership, owned land, no black marks against me and I will not be giving further private information to anyone. I don't give a damn if I can't gain access to some places in world, as I don't go there anyway.

It was shortsighted, if not downright foolish, of LL to open the floodgates and they will have to find another way to remove the underage accounts. At the very least, start insisting on having a credit card number for new accounts, even if it's never used.

The information they're requesting is the same information required when you:


Buy a car
Buy a house
Apply for a line of credit
Apply for a loan
Get your taxes done
Order a utility


And the list goes on. So is it safe to assume that the people bitching have done none of these things?

Poor comparisons. None of these are anything like getting a membership on the internet for entertainment.

All the highlighted things I have done. I don't have a drivers license or passport and nobody but the tax office knows my NI number.
A house can be bought without the need for identification. Either with cash or a mortgage. Your bank knows who you are so they don't need to see ID.
A car could be bought without ID until recently, when they made the sellers responsible for updating the national register.

It might be different in the US, but in the UK we don't have a habbit of giving out all kinds of ID for things that don't need it. SL comes nowhere near close to any of the things listed above in terms of requiring identification. If it did, aristotle/integrity would not be the chosen provider as their service cannot guarantee any kind of accuracy.

Is it safe to assume at this point that LL could say "Hey, God is going to come on down and do the age verification for us" and people will still bitch and moan?


And I was doing some research for this post. And I came across something. Visa has apparently prohibited the use of their credit card as a means of age verification? Anbody else heard any more on this?

Welcome to a world where the main grid is a beta and the beta grid is an alpha.
Until bugs in the viewer are fixed and world changing new features become less frequent, I consider it still in the beta stage.
Even the terms used in SL are in a beta stage.

i'll not be giving information of such sensitivity to a test platform.

If it continues to interest me, i will stay. If not I won't.

I like simple.
Otherwise it's possible to get:

CONFUSED
To cause to be unable to think with clarity or act with intelligence or understanding.
To cause to feel embarrassment.
To mistake (for another).
To make opaque. (As opposed to 'transparent')