Age Verification Answers

Some Decent Privacy!
Privacy, Content, and Community in Second Life

Are you concerned about protecting your real-life identity and privacy in Second Life? What can be done about minors on the grid? What is this "age and identity verification" really about? Should content and your behaviour be regulated? By whom? What are the community standards in Second Life? What legal requirements does Linden Lab have? What legal obligations do you have in this area? What do you think about the recent announcements by Linden Lab about all this?

Come to a moderated forum to talk and learn about these important and pressing issues.

http://secondlife.com/events/event.php?id=598042&date=1178917200

Please pass this on to interested parties.

You can join the "Some Decent Privacy" group to receive announcements.

(Many people are also on the "SL'ers against Age Verification" group, which uses their group channel for discussions, I think.)

A great wind is sweeping across the land. It is a wind that brings dismay and distrust, pain and suspicion, sorrow and accusation with its stinging grains of truths and lies. The people of the land bow with the wind and rail against it, but none can withstand its ultimate pressure.

It is the wind of political pressure; it is the wind of media pressure; it is the wind of moral and ethical pressure; it is a wind that in good times provides a gentle moral vector to the people. It has grown into a gale, now, and threatens the very existence of the land over which it sweeps.

The creators of this land, this Second Life, have no choice but to bow to the pressures of the world outside. The residents of the land understand this. We support this. We support and encourage the creators, the Lindens, to act when and as necessary to protect us and our loved ones from harm. We adhere to and respect the Terms Of Service given to us by the Lindens.

We offer up no judgment here on actions by our fellow residents that have caused this wind to sweep over us. We offer up no solutions. We offer only one vote, one voice, one call to the Lindens. We ask that our voice be heard by the world and by the very Founders of our land. We ask that our voice be recognized and counted.

Inasmuch that we, the users of Second Life, have previously declared us to be of an age that is recognized as adult by using previously accepted means of identification, we hereby also declare that it is our desire that Linden Lab does not attempt to verify our identity using numbers issued to us by our governments that are deemed private and inviolate between us and our governments. By this we mean that we do not want Linden Labs to require of us a voluntary relinquishment of our Social Security numbers, Passport numbers, or other National Identification numbers that are assigned to us by our respective governments.

We understand that Linden Lab has proposed to make this relinquishment voluntary and will, if not provided, prevent only our access to parcels on the land that are flagged as ‘Adult.’ We understand that Linden Lab has NOT proposed to make this relinquishment mandatory in order to provide access to all ‘PG’ and ‘Mature’ parcels.

We protest, however, the use of our personal government issued identification numbers in order to verify our identity with a service (Linden Lab) that is neither governmental nor financial. This use of our personal numbers may be construed as unethical, and indeed potentially hazardous to us, as the rising incidents of identity theft may illustrate.

By adding our votes to this tally, we do hereby officially protest the proposed method of identity verification. By making our small voices into one large voice, we say to the world that we see and hear the wind that roars over us, and we declare us to be above it, not subject to it.

*******

We will have the voting boxes setup in world as soon as possible; hopefully 12 hours from now. Note that you MUST vote in world. SLurls to follow soon.

Great post, Oryx. Where will the voting boxes be located in world? Can you let SL groups like SLers Against Age Verification know when they are up so we can alert all the members? We must remember that as SL residents we are ALL equal here, so making one group (Americans) give up their identity via SS#s should affect us all. Thanks...you make a very good argument and I hope LL gets the point!

Roisin, I wanted to include all SL residents regardless of nationality, which is why I included "passport or national ID numbers." This is meant to include everyone!

We are in the process of setting up multiple polling places; they will be in the form of touch boxes; upon touch, your avatar's name is added to an anonymous list on a secure website. Upon touch, a link to this website will also open, allowing you to select whether you wish to remain anonymous, or to post your name publicly. The server will scan and remove identical names from the list, and the list is inaccessible to add to from the website. This will require a physical vote by an avatar, a phyical click on the voting prim. It will obviously not deter alts but we are hoping that people are in general honest.

Either myself or Sys Slade will post SLurls to the polling sites. We have multiple sites to both reduce lag on the sims and to allow multiple http accesses by the sim. Please look for SLurls in the next 12 hours, hopefully on this thread if they don't close us down. One of the polling sites will be at the meeting that Feldspar Millgrove announced here at post #150.

Thanks!

Please note also that this open letter DOES NOT PROTEST AGE VERIFICATION. It merely protests the proposed METHOD of verification. The two are completely different topics and should be treated as such.

Former congressman Mark Foley appears to have used the Aristotle company, parent of the Integrity verification service.

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/expendetail.asp?CID=N00002898&cycle=2004&name=Aristotle

I wonder how many other office holding pedophiles have done or are doing business with Integrity or it's parent company?

Disclaimer: I haven't read this thread, but wanted to post this somewhere where it might be seen.

Given: It is illegal, or very difficult, for private companies to obtain national ID information on people in many countries, especially directly from the government.

Given: Aristotle/Integrity offers to verify our personal identity with information we provide.

Given: In order to verify that someone is giving you accurate information, you have to have accurate information to verify it against.

Logically this means that either:

a) Integrity already has the personal information of those 3 billion people they claim to be able to verify - and much of this information is illegal or incredibly difficult to obtain... and all that implies.

or

b) Integrity doesn't actually have as much of this personal information as they claim to have, but they really want to collect it, so will charge people a fee to take their personal information and add it to their database, while spitting out a 'yes' or 'no'.

This doesn't sound right. Any Lindens want to shed some light on how this works?

Simple verification in the UK... you have to be over 18 to vote, a simple name, address and DOB are all that are needed to check the electoral role.

No need to violate our personal security further by asking for driving license numbers, passport numbers (which in the age of international terrorism and identity fraud is frankly a ridiculous thing to ask someone to hand out over the internet) and there is no need to make us jump through so many hoops on the basis of your fear of litigation.

As a premium account you already have access to my name, DOB and address - that is all you need from me to verify my age.

Well since I'm already a BUDTV member I verified my age.
Integrity has my Info on file.

Lets all join BUDTV where are the only thing you need to prove your of age is your full name and birth date.

It's FREE

they can add me to msn for a cam conference n I'll say cheese but no way are they getting my Nat I.D number and its better verification than what is currently being proposed and its free. Not that I had any plans to become a rent boy in the near future anyways

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Mullett/211/13/148

re: previous posts about protesting SS numbers, etc.

This is the location of the first Voting Box. Just click on the big red sign to add your name.

Thanks!

To add to oryx's post, at present there is no option to remove your vote or list your name publically. The site at http://slverification.org.uk just lists the vote tally, so nobodies info is being shown publically.
I'll work up something better tommorow, including the option to remove your data and allow others to see you have voted.

I'm also looking into blogging software with a view to offering space for other groups on the domain if anyone is interested.

However, there are two electoral registers in the UK. The 'full register' which is used for the election process and an 'edited register' that is openly available. Each person has the option of leaving their name and address out of the 'edited register', and large numbers of people do this as its a useful way to avoid being targetted by companies selling new windows or other junk.

Access to the full electoral register is restricted and there are legal penalties for disclosure of this information to unauthorised people or companies. As far as I'm aware, the only people who have access to the full register, other than the state, are a number of named credit reference agencies.

Allex

I still am not seeing any clarification as to how enforcement of "adult" flagging is actually going to work, and this is alarming given the totally subjective "definition" of "adult" in the first place. Who is going to interpret any case, and how?

I know that a lot of people are running scared of AR reports as a new griefing sport. Want to settle a score? Here's how - if they don't have their land flagged as "adult", go along and rez a few prims, stick some porno texture on and report them. Make sure by getting an alt to do the same. Will it be any defense that the prims are subsequently deleted when the landowner finds them? Whose story is going to be believed?

If you can't rez prims on their land, you can make a billboard attachment that looks like a free-standing prim some distance from you, and get a screenshot of that.

It hardly says very much in favor of the system that everything has to be flagged "adult" just out of self-defense. It's a recipe for witch hunts.

Cann LL please say exactly what they are going to do about this?

Can you add a script to this to let the user know that the vote has been recorded? You know, with SL being the instability that it often is, I have no idea whether anything actually happened when I licked on the vote sign.

It uses whisper to let you know your vote has been recorded. If you stand close and click, it'll tell you that it's been recorded or that you've already clicked.

I didn't want to use normal chat on channel 0 as it was a meeting place, and having it send IMs to people incurs either a 3 second halt on the script or extra lag on the sim.

When I get some time, the site will be developed, allowing you to see if your vote is recorded in the database.

my husband is a LE (law enforcement officer) and his opinion is that under no circumstances is it a sane practace to give out this kind of information (first/last name, address, zip code + any part of ones SS#) to an "outfit" like linden labs to "farm" out to a 3rd party unless you are "dieing to experience identity theft first hand". Any agreement ll would have with this so called 3rd party would be null and viod if they were to go out of business and of course if their database was to ever become compromised and they faced thousands of law suits we all know they would NEVER do that. My CC is on file as well as my real NAME, ADDRESS AND PHONE NUMBER, as i kind of remember having to submit all that at the time i used my CC to became a verified useer. Did i dream giving all that information to LL already or am i confusing using my CC for SL with using it for WoW? It seems to me that every time i've used a CC over the internet i had to provide "billing" information... i don't remember a time i just entered a CC#... i'm i confussed here? i'm not saying i'm not confussed, what i'm asking is "am i correct" in that i already provided LL with this information???

Well for both WoW and SL I'm pretty sure I provided the information, in fact I know I did for WoW because I moved and had to update my details. I'd moved by the time I registered with SL but credit card companies get a bit jumpy regarding internet purchases that don't require a billing address so I'm pretty sure we did provide all of those details.

LL are saying that a CC is not proof of identity, nor is a SS number, which is where there's a bit of a flaw in their process. However I'm in agreement with your husband on this, the information they are asking for is way too sensitive, which is why you don't see this information being requested all over the internet.

"THE BROWSER
May 15, 2007
MySpace gets more heat for its predator problem

Eight attorney generals sent MySpace a letter yesterday asking the company to turn over the names of thousands of predators who are using the social network. Having met last summer with Hemanshu Nigam, the head of security at MySpace, I’d hardly characterize him as someone who’s lax about protecting younger users from sex predators.

News Corp. (NWS) put someone in charge who’s the real deal: he’s a former federal prosecutor of child molesters and Internet predators who later also headed child safety at Microsoft (MSFT), and anti-piracy at the MPAA. And law enforcement officials I spoke with, both local and federal, unanimously told me that MySpace works very closely with them–giving them tours of their facilities, handing out a 24-hour hotline number, and routinely cooperating with criminal investigations.

The trouble seems to center on a broader technological question: how does any company, not just MySpace, verify someone’s identity online? MySpace has to address this puzzle not only to identify sex predators but to do any age verification for minors as well. The Internet is a haven for the anonymous. MySpace’s decision to work with ID verification firm Sentinel Tech seems to be a step towards proactively identifying their users–aided by the fact that some former predators aren’t even bothering to use aliases–but it’s still a very new effort. A statement from Nigam says the software was only launched this month. So the attorney generals could be jumping the gun here.

It’s hard to make the case that MySpace has acted irresponsibly. This is a case where the best interests of the company and the public line up pretty squarely–nobody wants it to become a social network for pedophiles."
***********

Looks like the writing is on the wall, folks. MySpace is buckling in as well....

When will people know what options they have to verify their age? I mean, some of us would like to know for how long we will be unable to access own lands, friends lands etc and unable to make new creations. Personally I live outside the US, don't own DL or PP, and never would I give out SSN or any part of it to anything/anyone other than proper authorities of my own country. So basically, I know that I would need to accuire some other kind of ID, and this will be tagged with a long wait - anywhere from 4 weeks to 6 months - and not knowing what kinds of ID will be acknowlegded for my country, I'm not able to order an ID at present time. And this will most definitely be an expensive venture, as anything like that costs money.

you will always be able to access your own land (yes, even if it's in a mature zone) and i understand Robin is preparing a blog entry regarding international verification requirements. i read this in a chat log yesterday.. can't remember where it's posted now. here? a blog? second citizen? all three?

You might be able to - actual (to me thats still an open question). But how about morally? In that sence I couldn't even get myself to log in in the period my age is not verified - due to, among others, the Xcite thing I have in my inventory.

After reading through all of that, I just have to drop my 2 cents in here.

Yes, I agreed with the Age Verification when the idea first came up. I think it would be a really good idea. I had assumed (wrongly apparently) that age verification was coming about to remove the minors form the adult grid. That sounded like a very good idea to me. I didn't really like the idea of handing out even stuff like my DoB or address but was willing. Like I said, I was assuming underage users would be removed from the grid. I do agree that using a CC is not a trustworthy way to make sure someone is over 18. Someone mentioned the Visa Buxx card earlier, it is directed to teens. I actually have one (even though I'm 23) and that's the CC I use for SL. (cuts down on me spending too much because it's prepaid, we all know how easy it is to just get more L so we can buy that really cool toy/AV/whatever) Even without the Visa card I had my first credit card at 16, it was in my name and if I look at my credit report it's still listed there. Do I agree with giving out my SSN? ummm... no. Sorry been a victim of identity theft already and don't care to try to unravel thousands of dollars worth of BS again, thanks. As someone mentioned earlier, 90% of this would be dealt with if the known underage users were removed for the ADULT grid. That's why there's a teen version, or am I wrong about that? In my opinion SL needs to actually hold up their ToS. I joined SL to find an adult fantasy community, not to have to worry that the person I was talking to was not an adult. You all are right about it being too easy for kids to get ahold of their parent's ID and or SSN. Hell, my daughter climbed the bookcase I keep my purse on (it's about 5 feet off the ground) and snagged my ID. She's three! It's too easy. Is there any other way for the adults to be verified without a million risks? I get that LL is trying to cover their butts, but whose covering ours? We either potentially get robbed or we give up something we greatly enjoy? Either way we lose. There's got to be another way to handle this, because from what I read in all 12 pages of this thread, LL is so busy looking out for itself, they're forgetting that without us they wouldn't be here. Course they wouldn't have to cover their butt either so maybe that's what they're after. I don't know. I can't claim to know much about anything as far as the game goes but it just seems to me that all of us residents are screwed either way we go.

Sorry it ended up so long. Guess i had more than 2 cents to spill out. =/

I'm primarily concerned about this because of land that I own and rent. I run a mall which just expanded to it's own sim. The mall has animations of all types. I would say that a majority of the items in the mall are clearly not adult, at least 60%-70%. These are things like poses for AOs, dances, hug gadgets, modeling poses, etc. There is also a small amount of clearly adult product, primarily sexual poseballs, maybe 10-15%.

That leaves a fair amount of grey stuff in the middle. For instance, when does a pose ball become "explicit"? What if it's just a kiss or a cuddle? What if there is a little groping or heavy petting? What about grinding or dry humping? I really have no idea where to draw the line. This is completely subjective and no matter where I draw the line, I feel like I'll be open to ARs from anyone whose idea of morality is different from mine.

What about things that have a bit of a D/s or BDSM flavor? You might say sure, they are adult. But I really don't think a pose of someone kneeling on the ground is explicit at all. Yet I'm quite sure that there are some in SL would feel any reference to power exchange roleplay would be adult.

I'd like to use my common sense, but when you are talking about a global marketplace, I really can't see how we can come up with a common standard about what is explicit and what is not.

Finally, what will be the penalties if you don't flag your land as "adult" and after several ARs from the moral police (or perhaps a creative group of griefers), you decide to take action? Will you flag the land as adult for them? Will you ban the parcel owner's account and kick them out of SL? This has an extremely chilling affect in SL. Imagine that you are someone who derives a significant portion of your income from SL. You might think twice about having anything on you land that was even vaguely sexual in nature, just because there is a chance that you would be banned for not flagging your land correctly.

Here's another permutation of an idea others and I mentioned elsewhere:

* Credit cards to be used when opening an SL account of any sort - a token charge made to the card and referenced as "Second Life" (not just Linden Research or whoever), to alert any unsuspecting cardholder to unauthorised use by children etc.
or/and
* Attach a Minor/Adult flag to the card record. On transaction authorisation the state of the flag is returned to the vendor requesting approval. In effect, SL or any other commercial entity could then decline the request for anything restricted to Adult cardholders.

From the perspective of the internet, misuse of parents' ID, cards etc by children can't be prevented with certainty. Parents doing their job as parents can be alerted to what happens with their card though, provided they are responsible enough to read their card statements. This sort of thing is something reasonable to expect of parents. As has been pointed out here, credit cards are issued to people with verified identities - there are fierce legal, commercial and commonsense reasons for that.

So an "identity verification" system already exists in that sense. If such systems are to be extended to cover minors using their own credit cards then flagging the card is way more sensible - and enforceable - than alternatives internet technologies can't deliver with certainty.

Card companies may squeak "costs" and all manner of things in opposition to such an adult/minor distinction but they are responsible for issuing the cards in the first place. This "campaign" in the online world needs to be shunted into discussions of things that have some reasonable prospect of success. Online companies requiring sensitive identifying data, whether directly or at one remove through a third party, are a perilous business anyway; the data becomes Out There at the mercy of some company's commercial and legal fortunes. What's more, in pretty much any western jurisdiction outside the States it will shortly be - or already is - illegal to supply a non-government agent with the sorts of information required (ID numbers etc etc).

I get the distinct feeling we (SL ppl at least) are getting rushed into something disastrous for online "culture" outside very narrow confines of some virtual Disneyland - the dumbing down of content to suit increasingly strident demands for "safety" for the youngest common denominators. This needs to stop somewhere, and preferably with the people who are supposed to be caring for the young in the first place.
It is reasonable to expect that the people who issue those passports to online shopping, the credit card companies, provide the proper authorising information at the points of the transactions.

</rant>