More on Age Verification
Sunday, December 9th, 2007 at 7:47 PM by: Robin LindenCatching up with the concerns that have been raised regarding our recent expansion of age verification testing….
Legality, Privacy and Data Storage
Some of you have raised the question whether the age verification vendor we have selected, Aristotle and their Integrity service, is complying with various global privacy laws, which generally pertain to collection, use and storage of personal data. We’ve been assured by them that they are in compliance with all relevant privacy laws. But the most important point here — which we think makes a big difference in evaluating safety and compliance — is that no data is being taken, retained or stored. Rather, an automated check is done at the point of contact, and all data is then purged. Thus, there is no collecting, using, storing, or transferring of your personal information beyond the one-time match. Period. Certainly, you are not being asked to place your information in a database.
We are pursuing age verification in a good faith attempt to comply with international laws, and after discussions with numerous governmental agencies across Europe, North America, and Asia. In some cases, these governments have publicized their views quite widely. We encourage this debate, but we also ask that you understand that we are seeking to comply with the laws of the countries our Residents are from — notwithstanding that many Residents may disagree with their own country’s laws or directives.
Voluntary Status
As currently implemented, age verification and parcel flagging to create adults-only restricted areas rely completely on voluntary participation. However, there is no assurance that either feature will always be voluntary for all Second Life Residents. It’s possible, for example, that we could be required at some point to make one of these features mandatory for the citizens of a specific country. Should that happen, we will do everything we can to provide maximum advance warning.
Accuracy, Reliability and Other Options
Although previous global testing of the Integrity system with a smaller sample showed a nearly 80% success rate, broader implementation has been disappointing, with too many failures. We’re continuing to fine-tune the process to improve the success rate. While the Integrity process is attractive because it offers global matching without any data storage, if necessary we’ll look into other options to ensure that minors are not accessing Second Life or inappropriate content.
December 9th, 2007 at 8:02 PM
A reply worth something at least.. Hopefully this doesn’t ruin SL like so many people think it will.
December 9th, 2007 at 8:03 PM
Thank you LL for this. Folks, LL has stepped up to the plate to protect minors from all the garbage that this user created world has produced. At the same time, LL has protected themselves from lawsuits arising from residents who turn a blind eye to those who visit their sick places.
Its up to us now. Do the right thing, flag your pornographic sims and do YOUR part to keep your gross obscenities away from minors.
December 9th, 2007 at 8:05 PM
Good to see you state in black and white, on the record that Integrity do not retain ANY information, that it is purged.
Can you please advise if you transfer our avatar name to them? After all it is useless.
Can you please advise what the purpose of this is? I places a 16M2 parcel in a mature sim, placed what could be broadly offensive porn into it and flagged it as verify only. People, and underagers, can stand millimeters away from the offensive material.
December 9th, 2007 at 8:09 PM
There wouldn’t be significant numbers of minors on SL if they hadn’t opened up “free” access in the first place. Nor would there be thousands of griefer and chair-farmer accounts bloating the userbase numbers and bogging down the inventory servers and forcing Linden Labs to cut services to legitimate users.
December 9th, 2007 at 8:11 PM
So in other words we have no assurances that you won’t phase in full identity verification like you said you wanted at the beginning of you mission to “keep us safe together” and assure us that you will fold at the first sign of trouble from a country and crack down on our freedoms to use our own age verification methods. Also the last time we were given advanced warning of a major change in sl was the VAT tax that simply showed up on peoples bills without warning until you were forced to give people time to prepare for a 1/4 increase in their prices. And you also can only give us a corporate promise about what you tell us another corporation promised you when before they were going to store our data for 2 years for ‘legal reasons’. If you will give us the direct promise from Aristotle themselves then it might be a bit more easily believed.
December 9th, 2007 at 8:15 PM
I forgot to mention: As we speak, legislation is being passed here in the US to fight child pornography (listen up you sick age-players). Now do you see why LL does not want all of your pics,videos, chat logs, AND IMs on their servers? Yes:IMs are stored.
House Passes H.R. 3791, the “SAFE ACT”
“The legislation, introduced by Representatives Nick Lampson (D-TX) and Steve Chabot (R-OH), would strengthen, modernize and expand Federal law by requiring Internet service providers (ISPs) to report violations of child sexual exploitation and pornography laws and information on the Internet identity, like email address, website address, uniform resource locator, or other identifying information, about the suspected sex offender. The measure also increases penalties for ISPs that fail to report child pornography they locate on their servers.”
December 9th, 2007 at 8:16 PM
all i keep reading is a bunch of bable on how your gonna do this age verification now for months, is it possible to actually tell how we can verify and when do we need to do it and who to?
personally i think its a joke because i have talked to so many who say there using there sister or brothers cc to get in game so it really isnt gonna stop any kid getting in, and as far as the person i wont say names talking about “gross obscenities away from minors.”
thats an easy fix dont let your kids on the internet or maybe take the time to watch what they are doing on the net, thats the parents responsibility not ours
December 9th, 2007 at 8:16 PM
If i was a company that sold info like this, of course thats what i will email back. lol.
December 9th, 2007 at 8:18 PM
“no data is being taken, retained or stored”
If this is so, then I have no problems with age verification, and in fact support the concept - my issues were with the method as it appeared presented.
I am still dubious about the technical side and expect this will stay in a loooooooooong beta as issues arise for every different country - heck! my country can’t even keep my name the same on the electoral roles from one year to the next (they hyphenated it this year, putting it alphabetically where myself and the role recorder only found it after a call to the head office to check their computer records!) My RL name is a bit unusual in ways I am not prepared to go into except to say that I don’t have a single piece of ID where the name is exactly what is on my birth certificate! Every government computer (and my bank) has to have the name fields munged differently to take it. Multicultural country my oversized butt! ;-D
December 9th, 2007 at 8:21 PM
@2
“Do the right thing, flag your pornographic sims and do YOUR part to keep your gross obscenities away from minors.”
Do the right thing and educate your children not to use any computer application which is CLEARLY defined as being for adults only. Maybe they prefer church then.
Thanks for the fish.
December 9th, 2007 at 8:21 PM
Tim, Despite sexual ageplay being wrong, pixel kids are not real kids, pixel kids cannot be exploited, also under current US law pixel kids can’t make pornography. So this act is not relevant.
We know both IMs and chat records are stored, this is how LL investigate ARs but let me say this… a group of SL boys talking about skateboards and BMX bikes is far from heretical.
Return to your bible studies please and leave SL to the sane people.
December 9th, 2007 at 8:31 PM
As stated before by other residents, the age verification is total bs. Even if the the info is purged, it is still unlawful to use a ssn for any reason other then local, state, or governmental purposes. I personally have left other “Games” specifically for this reason. With all the hacking and other ways of getting personal info, I dont see how you promise us, the end users of your product, that another outside source that promises you that this will be done, can believe it unless you yourselves have gone ahead and registered with this outsource company before. Like so many others here on sl, I dont believe in camp farming and the only reasonable thing to do would be one account unless need by those of us who use a network and share an isp. If you think you need to put forth the time and money to verify age, then you should think about looking into closing sl and prepare for dozens of lawsuits and a possible government crack down on even asking for ssn. Again, we have no garuntee about about the security of this outsource who claims that they will purge the info. there is always someone that will get offered money or even try the risk of id fraud.
December 9th, 2007 at 8:32 PM
I’m going to go sell the Brooklyn Bidge now.
December 9th, 2007 at 8:40 PM
I feel that it would be overall better if SL would just require credit cards, debit cards, etc (or any such cards depending on country); it would solve a lot of problems since these cards are usually verified already. Granted, minors can still get around that but at least SL would have a universal policy in place.
Sl started and the did away with requiring a credit or debit card to sign up, and that is fine, but it is also very acceptable to admit it may not have been such a great move and re-institute this ‘you need a card’ policy.
I am all for “age verification” and will do so once it is in place and functioning.
JP Cone
December 9th, 2007 at 8:41 PM
I’m confused by the wording of the blog…
>>Voluntary Status
As currently implemented, age verification and parcel flagging to create adults-only restricted areas rely completely on voluntary participation. However, there is no assurance that either feature will always be voluntary for all Second Life Residents. It’s possible, for example, that we could be required at some point to make one of these features mandatory for the citizens of a specific country.<<
Well then, why not push age-verification on the select country(s) that this will be required for and skip the parcel flagging. It seems that if they force 1 country to age verify then they will force all land owners to flag parcels for enforcement, thus forcing more people having to age-verify. All the promises in the world with good intentions never is a 100% guarantee that my information won’t be stolen (even if not stored). There is no guarantee that my data won’t be intercepted on it’s way by means of hacker or that this 3rd party’s software doesn’t contain a hole for someone to steal people’s personal identification (a scary thought if the system is automated). I believe LL of all company’s should understand this risk since last year they had a hacker break into their database stealing passwords. Sorry, I don’t trust the internet or 3rd parties with more info than my credit card and address, sometimes not even that much.
December 9th, 2007 at 8:42 PM
@11
i agree.
a lot people say blaming the parents is a cheap shot, BUT ITS NOT. parents are the first line of defense. stupid people need to stop having kids thinking that they can just watch their soap operas while their kids do whatever.
kids are sneaky, they can all lie, they are curious because they are new to the world, and they can find ways to do stuff just like we can. its the the kids with the ignorant parents that find the nasty crap in SL and on the internet in general. and its the stupid teens that end up “exploited” on the internet. sure its said, but you cant sit there and tell me the stuff these kids do were smart.
back on topic, i dont care what LL does as long as i can keep making money, lolz
December 9th, 2007 at 8:44 PM
This whole thing seems like a colossal waste of funds better spent elsewhere. No other games, companies ect. require this level of identity verification. It would be simple enough to stick to the user contract you have in place now and simply implement another age check in game. This system would be as follows:
1. Sims are marked as adult content
2. Before being able to enter that area there is a warning window that pops up and warns the member of the content and another button set that contains a link to the terms of service ect and “I’m of the right age” or “I’m not of age”
Easy as pie right? seems a lot better than having to scour databases for information to get verified and pay for all the processing fees ect. and there’s no questionable outside companies involved.
Heck, it works for everywhere else in the internet world, why should SL go the extra mile at such expense?
December 9th, 2007 at 8:45 PM
Sean, we don’t know who the pixel children are; that’s the problem.
December 9th, 2007 at 8:48 PM
Rebecca Proudhon: Excellent, I have some Northern Queensland ‘wetland’ to put it on
I still don’t trust this Aristotle lot any further than I could kick them up a chimney! I would far more trust Linden Labs - at least when they break stuff it is by accident, not “accidentally-on-purpose” to use a phrase popular in the primary classtoms ATM (again, I was popular when I was that age too, but the kids think it is quite original
Why not use multiple verifiers and let them compete for our trust. Or is Aristotle giving a kickback for exclusivity and if so, isn’t this sort of anti-competitive thing illegal in most capitalist societies?
Again, I have no beef with Age Verification per-se (but if you start talking about gender and location verification like was mentioned right at the start of this thing, expect the claws out) but I REALLY REALLY REALLY don’t trust this verifier. Their track record of ‘accidentally’ selling information to anyone who can pay speaks for itself. Will they “accidentally” keep a copy of the verification data? Then ‘accidentally’ sell it? And then get a nice little slap on the wrist because so many congresspeople rely on their services?
December 9th, 2007 at 8:49 PM
18, Dnali… I am a pixel kid. How is that?
What you don’t know is who the REAL LIFE kids are, is that buff Gorean master with chain of naked slaves (either male or female) a real life child or is he over 18?
Age play has ZERO to do with this topic. Well, except for the fact that any reasonable real life child will come into SL to be something he is not and not play at being his real age.
December 9th, 2007 at 8:51 PM
Well, your system is working grand thus far. I reside in the USA, you won’t accept my drivers license number nor the last four digits of my social security number.
December 9th, 2007 at 8:53 PM
#4 - Argent Stonecutter
You are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!! We have an artificially bloated number of residents that Linden Labs has been waving around like a victory flag to draw investors to Second Life since they lifted the credit card requirement in June 2005. Overtaxing a hardware and software backbone that ws never designed for the exponentially growing numbers of avatars that flood the database.
This is precicely why LL has dragged their heels on implimenting age verification for so long, their precious number of “customers” for investors to reach with product placement, advertising, and purchasing sims to flog their merchandise.
Even now, they make this entire thing “voluntary”, thus not putting the genie back in the bottle at all, but merely making some token show of compliance that they hope the German media (who STARTED this screaming about underage activity almost a YEAR ago when two adults were spotted roleplaying an underage sexual scenario by members of the German press) will accept as sufficient effort.
This isn’t enough. It will NEVER be enough until Linden Labs makes this both manditory, and enforces it, and puts a credit card requirement on Second Life that will bar alts and underage children from accessing the grid. (NOTE: I didn’t say you have to PAY to play, you just have to demonstrate that you CAN by filing payment info to further insure that you’re PROBABLY an adult.) One card number for one avatar. No more alts bogging down the database.
Oh and one more thing. If an avatar hasn’t logged in for over a year, it gets purged from the database to stop the strain. Be proactive, Lindens.
December 9th, 2007 at 8:53 PM
“[A]ge verification and parcel flagging to create adults-only restricted areas rely completely on voluntary participation.” I know it’s been said before, but I still want to point out that the entirety of SL is already “adults-only. ” I’d also like to point out that when the age verification entered its current stage of testing on Dec. 5th, the page that had the form for verification had link that was supposed to connect us to Aristotle’s privacy policy page. That link was broken and just redirected back to the form. I have just now gone back to that form and instead of fixing the link, it has been removed completely. Why was it not fixed? I agree with some of the other posters here; I would like assurance direct from the company. This could lead to serious identity theft at worse. Age Verification is such a good idea! Please don’t screw it up by holding back on questions that we continually ask.
Oh, one more thing. If you, Linden Lab, make this verification mandatory, then it’s unethical to charge the residents for it, period. If it’s voluntary, then fine, I’ll consider it and if I decide it’s safe and the price is reasonable, I will do it and encourage others to do the same. If you make it a mandatory thing AND charge the users for it people, even premium residents, will start leaving. It’s like the mob collecting protection money from a shop keeper, “Pay us the money to protect you by verifying your age, or you can’t use our program.” Please think about that.
~r.V.J.
December 9th, 2007 at 8:57 PM
“no data is being taken, retained or stored.” - they still don’t explicitly say by LL AND Aristotle or just by LL. This post says nothing. Plus, like #3 says, they still won’t tell us about avatar names.
December 9th, 2007 at 8:58 PM
Hi Sean, good point except…: SL has never solved the problem of PG sims being right next to Mature sims. They have never solved the situation of unmarked Mature parcels being right next to Mature parcels that are check-boxed as containing Mature content. So of course, now, they have no solution to a parcel flagged “explicit” being right next to non-explicit parcels, either. As for what the “purpose” of this is, I assume they’re hoping it’ll provide some legal/liability protection to SL + land owners who use the system. - - - As for the related issues, it still seems irrational that roleplaying illegal sexual activities in SL is illegal, but roleplaying illegal killing (murder) in SL is legal. (Are we supposed to believe that murder is nowhere near as offensive as sex crimes?) All things equal, laws should either ban all roleplay of all illegal activities (!?!?!), or let people roleplay all their stories & characters at will… like bigscreen movie producers are allowed to do.
December 9th, 2007 at 9:00 PM
Ok so you want age verification ,fine by me,but the best way to do it is by credit card information.No credit card then you dont get into adult sims,simple really isnt it.I cant see what all the fuss is about. OK we all know about fraud and being cloned but this way we know where the information is and who to contact if our identity gets stolen.It will be Linden labs and the credit card company.So if governments want us to give age verification thats the way to do it. The other way is for the Governments to do it all,lets face it that is not being realistic.Most cant keep secrets anyhow.
December 9th, 2007 at 9:00 PM
Its a stupid Idea in the End.
1: Its a Parents Responsibility to watch what the hell their Children are doing on their Computer in the first Place. There are Siteblockers that Parents can set that will prevent Minors from going to Websites containing Sexual Material, add Second Life to that as well and its fine. You cannot Register a Account unless you can go to the Website, Problem solved.
2: Its easy for Minors to get on the Information required for Age Verification. That there are Minors on this Grid in the first Place should make some People think about what they are doing here. There is a Teen Grid for those, if they come to the Adult Grid instead, their Problem, not ours.
3: Aristotle/Integrity or whatever they are called are probably going to get kicked in the Nuts by several Governments, or already did so. To use their Service will be the worst Mistake ever LL. Either Way, they will probably get several Lawsuits in the future for things that happened even before LL turned to their Service. At least, so far my Information on that Subject.
4: The News Station that created this Hype about Ageplay CREATED that particular Scene in the first Place. That was no Ageplay, that were employees of said News Station ACTING as exactly that. LL can even prove that because they were so stupid to use the News Stations Computers to log into Second Life. Ever wondered why there were no new reports? Now you know. It may be true that it would be possible that something like this happens BUT as it stands now it appears to most People that it happens 24/7 in every Sim in SL, which is untrue.
So to get this to the Point. I see why Age Verification needs to be done, however LL should overthink their Plans before that, think of other Options as those already available. As some People already stated, its Illegal for some of us to give away that Information to either LL or Aristotle.
December 9th, 2007 at 9:00 PM
Thank you for further expanding on your Verification Process.
I have a feeling people will still be upset given this company’s past.
I would just rather a Safe and US Government Assisted/Linked or International Government Assisted company was involved with this. But I understand it’s likely difficult to gain low bids from these companies. Especially when places like PayPal are so busy and have these companies so devoted to them. I hope more glitches don’t arise as you get these other problems corrected. Scripting is difficult like that and that’s why you can’t snap your fingers and fix a glitch or bug for everyone.
Tim Tebow–
If you look further it is actually legal to Sexually interact with a Computerized Virtual Child or an Adult operated Virtual Child. Cases have gone through the court systems and this hs been made clear many times. I only care because things are supposed to be legal and such. I think SL is lieing about it relateing to the US and actually looking at other countries they have residents from. Instead of coming out with that they just keep saying it’s the US saying they aren’t allowed to by law.
December 9th, 2007 at 9:01 PM
Its nice to know you are making an effort to answer some of the more important questions.
“However, there is no assurance that either feature will always be voluntary for all Second Life Residents. It’s possible, for example, that we could be required at some point to make one of these features mandatory for the citizens of a specific country.”
But, that worries me a bit.. if that example becomes a reality you may for example very likely lose an entire countries participation in Second Life.
December 9th, 2007 at 9:02 PM
Two things continue to concern me:
1) YOU may have been assured they won’t store data, but WE have not. In the end we’re talking liability and contract law, and as such WE haven’t signed anything with Aristotle/Integrity and therefore have no guarantees. They can give you as many guarantees as they like, it’s not YOUR personal data at stake here… but if you go bankrupt, your TOS says that nobody can be held responsible for any data collected by Second Life. This effectively frees Aristotle/Integrity of all barriers to use our data, since they haven’t made an express agreement with us to the contrary. Can you address this issue?
2) As I understand it, it is a REQUIREMENT of the PATRIOT act, in whose jurisdiction both you and Aristotle/Integrity fall, that ANY collected data must be held for a time in case it is the subject of a DoJ information request concerning an outstanding investigation into an individual. Can you therefore clarify where you stand under the PATRIOT act, and whether, in fact, you are required by that act to keep ANY data and if so - what?
December 9th, 2007 at 9:06 PM
Everyone with a “payment info on file” has verified her/his age already, cause usually the underaged do not get a bank account, not even a pay pal account So why double check? Age verification by some identity card number could be an option for the ones who have no bank account, but not an obligation.
I suspect LL wants to shut down the teen grid and let the minors on the main gid. Only then all this “age verification” double checking of already existing adult accounts would make some sense. They could have the kids on the main grid, but restrict the access of certain parts of the grid.
December 9th, 2007 at 9:11 PM
“No credit card then you dont get into adult sims,simple really isnt it.”
Charlie: it used to be “no credit card you don’t get into SL”.
That’s where it should have stopped. PG vs mature isn’t for “protecting kids” it was for “some people really prefer not to have prim bits waved at them”.
December 9th, 2007 at 9:13 PM
Vivienne– I had a Credit Card, Savings, and Checking account before I was 18 and before it was popular.
It is now normal for Tweens and Teens to have Credit Cards and Cell Phones. It’s just becomeing more and more popular to give them the refillable kind as Tweens and Teens already ruin themselves in these areas. Some Companies will still go after you even if you are underaged and even if you did something while Underaged.
There is talk from the Teens that they are planning to Merge Grids in a Month,.. but that is rumor (mostly I hear about here on these blogs).
What I think LL would hate but would make some sense is to make an under 13 Grid. It is basically imposible but the excuse parents and children have been haveing for being on the Adult Grid. I have run into 8-12 year olds countless times and they even told Lindens “I couldn’t get on the Teen Grid”.
And yes,.. many Teens have PayPal accounts.
December 9th, 2007 at 9:13 PM
[...] Linden Labs has their latest blog post to answer resident questions. They are answering most of the questions we all had back in May but [...]
December 9th, 2007 at 9:14 PM
In LL’s defense, I’ve actually used the system. I decided to do so because it gave me the option of using identification methods that would not provide enough information to commit identity theft against me — the last 4 digits of my social security number. I’m a reasonably (in fact, very) paranoid person, and found less cause for concern that, say, buying something on Amazon.
Comment by all means, but please know what you are talking about first.
December 9th, 2007 at 9:15 PM
LL is taking a lot of weird, self-contradictory actions lately in a lame attempt to simultaneously protect itself from liability without eroding its revenue base. I don’t think any of their actions would actually protect them in court, as they are filled with logically inconsistent positions. I wonder who advises them that these various schemes are actually going to protect them should litigation ensue. The fact is, the Adult Grid is for people over the age of 18, and if anyone under 18 is on that grid, it’s LL’s fault, no matter how desperately it might try to shift the burden onto residents so as to protect its revenue base (which is probably largely minors since membership became free).
December 9th, 2007 at 9:19 PM
Tim
You’re words are hypocritical. If LL had “stepped up to the plate,” (your words) then there would be no “children” cruising around on the main grid in the first place.
I have children and believe it or not the process of creating them would be something you might call porn. Personally, my spouse of 33 years and I call it something else.
Because we are responsible parents we don’t allow our children to watch us “play.” However, without that “play” we wouldn’t have the kids in the first place.
This is what I do to relax. However, what many of us are concerned with is not simply stamping out child pornography or anything else that doesn’t meet your missionary only style of life.
DO NOT come in here and inflict your religious views on the rest of us. What I do in my sim, as long as it doesn’t violate the law, is none of your, or your God’s, business. So climb down off your high horse. All the “garbage” as you call it pays the bills for the rest of this world to function.
For the record I do not support child pornography. However, every month when my credit card statement comes in I check it - like any responsible person does. If my children were accessing an adult site I would handle that myself, not rely on other adults to stop their play to police my children.
You go right on praying to the government to do your parenting for you. Pray for them to balance the budget and pray for them to stop killing my kids who are old enough to serve in the war. Pray for a lot of things….But while you’re on your knees pray that people like you don’t turn us into a religious theocracy.
If this was really about AGE VERIFICATION then how about I get on a plane I think one of the local carriers charges $49 to fly from here to San Francisco and show them my driver’s license, pilot’s license or any of the other photo identification I have since maybe my bald head and beard would not be enough to show that I am old enough to be here. Since they are keeping no records how about that?
Just for the record LL, why can’t we verify our age in person rather than give information up that your not going to keep anyway. Give the word and I’ll be in San Francisco in person to log in - in front of you to prove I am my avitar.
While I realize this is not an option for everyone it is for a lot of us who don’t wish to trust your 3rd party vendor.
On the same subject, look up my record for the past few months with this avitar and let me know what child could afford to pay you the money i do. Once you publish that let me know where he works so I can trade jobs with him/her.
Our world, our imagination is rapidly being subverted to the religious rights world and their lack of imagination. No wonder the Europeans think we are rediculous. Do you really think that Hipihi and the other virtual worlds will do this - Maybe the answer to virtual worlds is a communist nations view on religious zealots.
Just my 2L worth
December 9th, 2007 at 9:20 PM
http://www.massively.com/2007/12/09/aristotle-integrity-el-dia-de-los-muertos/
December 9th, 2007 at 9:21 PM
Sorry fro using up so many posts - I had too much sugar at lunch
If this thing is to keep countries happy re: potential child access to mature content (fair enough) why not put the onus on the individual countries to verify their citizens?
Here in Australia, we generally use drivers’ licences for age ID. Not every adult (such as me until last week) has a drivers licence, so the Roads and Traffic Authority can also, for a nominal fee, issue a non-licence - a card that works like a licence for ID purposes, but doesn’t entitle you to drive. Australia already has this system set up. (Minors can have a licence, but the DOB is listed on all licences and in the database.)
So you say to the Australian Govt: “If you want us to verify your citizens to stop your children accessing adult regions, give us the name:licence# verification hooks into your database.
Then you say to people logging in from .au domain regions: “you must have a drivers’ licence or RTA age ID as proof-of-age to access adult-flagged areas.”
And so on for each country - the form for each country might be slightly different, but the response from the database would be either “OK” or “Underage” and the name/ID# data would be sent directly to the government database verifier.
Any country that doesn’t supply such hooks into their appropriate system (be it Licence, SSN, whatever) obviously doesn’t care about verification so all people accessing from their address ranges are classed adult by default until hooks are provided.
I don’t see why this wouldn’t actually be precedent-setting and a lot of other adult internet services might want to be using such a service too. And it is ‘for the children’ with huge positive publicity for the respective governments, particularly the first few to implement it.
Such a system does not need to involve seemingly-dodgy third party companies. It can be rolled out per-country as needed, it even allows for countries with non-18 ages of adulthood (let’s face it, the #18 is quite arbitrary).
December 9th, 2007 at 9:22 PM
I simply can’t believe that you are spending the money and effort on this LL.
Here’s my understanding of how you cover your corporate butt….
Just add an “I am over and I attest to the accuracy of my contact information. ” web form to your sign-up process. Then if the account is bogus, you are covered so long as you actually respond to evidence you come across or are presented with that an account is fraudulent.
You know full well that there are less invasive alternatives.
Please, stop claiming that any 3rd party can guarantee the authenticity of your customer contact information any better than you can with diligent attention in speed and care spent on Abuse Reports. It simply can’t be done without having a staff member standing over the shoulder of each and every customer as they sign up and use the service.
You, I, and everyone else knows that this is the truth. So why continue down this path to Big Brother(tm)?
After all, didn’t Phillip Linden state at a Town Hall Meeting about a year ago that LindenLabs wanted the citizens of SecondLife to police themselves and handle their own disputes as much as possible with their own form of government?
This most certainly is not heading in that stated direction of self governance, and I for one am extremely disappointed at the foolishness displayed by this “verification” exercise. If you feel that you must head towards a Big Brother setup, then SecondLife will not flourish and prosper in the ways that you wish it to.
So please. I’m asking nicely as a year+ old avatar of SL. Don’t do this verification system. It’s insulting to me, you, and every customer of SecondLife. It’s as if you believe the world to be incapable of self governance, self control, maturity, and responsibility. You are punishing the majority that is honest and ethical for the crimes of the minority of users that are griefers, liars, fraudsters.
It is not the way of the LindenLabs that we all grew up as avatars with in the past. It is the way of the dodo bird. The Internet has proven that letting go and dealing with violators as they are discovered is the only real answer just as the record companies are discovering that DRM isn’t the answer to protecting the artists. For this verification system is the same sort fo flawed and doomed answer as DRM.
Sincerely,
Ahzzmandius Werribee
p.s.
Do you intend to force every secondary grid that wishes to hook up to your’s into using this same system, or another equally onerous and flawed system? If so, you can forget about maintaining your status as The SecondLife Grid once OpenSim (or another unknown project) reaches critical mass in functionality. The Internet at large WILL rebel and a new, better, self governing grid will be born and LindenLabs will be left in the past. It has in the past against overreaching authentication schemes were imposed. It will again in whatever new medium is created. It may not happen right away, or even within the year, but it will eventually happen. I think you know this to all be true.
I for one will be one of the first OpenSim systems on the Internet as soon as it can begin to compare to your systems (provided I can get my hands on a server to run it with and decent bandwidth!).
December 9th, 2007 at 9:23 PM
This still does not address the issues for those who live in countries that require either Drivers Licence, or Passport for identification, and have neither of those.
If we have neither we are given the option of sending a scanned copy of our Birth Certificate, and a Utility Bill to LL so they can verify us.
This I will never do, as certainly here scanned copies can be notorised which is enough ID for anyone to use to steal your identity, as I know from bitter experience.
December 9th, 2007 at 9:25 PM
Why can’t LL understand that this is a really bad idea? Why do they continue to invest time and effort in pissing off their customers?
I am NEVER going to use this age verification system. It stinks sixteen different ways to Sunday. It is awkward, crude, unreliable and - most importantly - serves no useful purpose. At the very best, it will generate anger and frustration. You can bet that if I spend $300+ per month in tier and suddenly cannot get into a shop or onto a piece of land because of this system, I am going to scream blue murder.
What is it with you guys? What is this obsession you have with someone under 18 getting into the game? You left the door WIDE OPEN with the anonymous accounts for OVER A YEAR! Are you stupid? Now you saddle the community with this ridiculous system that everyone HATES and you can’t understand why we are HOPPING MAD?
I have spoken recently with a BIG investor in SL who hauled out his money several months ago in absolute frustration with LL’s horrible customer service.
For God’s sake, hire someone with brians who can manage this company before it all goes to hell.
December 9th, 2007 at 9:25 PM
YES, OTHER OPTIONS
December 9th, 2007 at 9:26 PM
[...] 2: Another clarification on the process by which the verification occurs - I’m still fascinated how the third-party [...]
December 9th, 2007 at 9:29 PM
And I will NOT flag my land as Mature - ever!
December 9th, 2007 at 9:32 PM
Robin,
The problem is the fact that Linden Lab has been not been forthcoming, until now, with detailed information about what Age Verification entails.
Honestly, your posts a few months ago about “Trust” and full Identity Verification were upsetting to much of the community because it threatens to bring so much RL information into SL that it will make SL basically nothing more than a communications platform. Placing trust in someone is something that is done between two individuals and shouldn’t have a third party involved to act as the arbiter of what’s “true” or not. Declarations from Linden Lab that it is “optional” strikes a sour note within the community because that is what Linden Lab says anytime they force an unwanted feature onto the community at large.
The problem is, indeed, one of trust. The issue is that we don’t really trust what you say anymore, not because we don’t like you, but because you’ve given us so many reasons not to. Your answers to direct questions regarding IDV and Age Verification have been either inept enough to be misleading or deliberately deceitful.
Allow me to point out one of the issues. When you first made your posting regarding “Protecting our community” or “building trust” you said that it would be possible to “expose verified aspects of your identity.” What immediately pops to most people’s minds is a tab in your profile that displays this “verified” information about the RL person behind the avatar. In order to do this, Linden Lab *MUST* store some information on their servers. It is impossible, technically, to accomplish this without storing that information somewhere. I, for one, find this offensive and, while I don’t pretend to speak for anyone other than myself, I do believe that a large portion of the community also finds it offensive. I think that many people on SL just want someplace to have fun and to be their “better” selves, whatever that might be.
The reason there is so much ire in the community is because you haven’t recanted any of your previous statements, so we are left wondering what you’re going to do in the future. Again, *we* don’t trust you.
Robin, given that you are the person in charge of communications and given that the community no longer trusts you. I believe that you, personally, have a lot of work to do to prove yourself to us before we fully trust you again.
Anony Mouse
December 9th, 2007 at 9:34 PM
If parents are so concerned about what the kids are doing on the nbet they’d simply make themselves of what they were doing on the net so that hogwash doesn’t fly with me. As far as the insults to age players I thought harassment was against SL policy. but again you’re cherry picking and making up policy as you go along much as you’ve done with age play. It’s against no US law and you harass us about it but prostitution which is against US law is allowed to run rampant
December 9th, 2007 at 9:46 PM
o_O LOL this is great
December 9th, 2007 at 9:47 PM
Ok, Lindens i’m Age Verified, could someone explain why that’s does’nt work correctly in-world? oh btw your beautifull Release Candidate is full of bugs… *rofl*
@ 40, About your post scriptum, keep your old 1.18.5.x or Windlight or any alternative viewer in a safe backup somewhere cause 1.18.6.0 RC is not able to log in an OpenSIM server, LL get ride of old login method and -loginuri parameter don’t work anymore !!
December 9th, 2007 at 9:49 PM
Yes, they will keep your information and use it to “accidently” sell to government officials who will later send the info to the IRS so they can tax you for anything you’ve ever bought or sold in SL…stay tuned for the next episode….
December 9th, 2007 at 9:49 PM
“if necessary we’ll look into other options to ensure that minors are not accessing Second Life”
This is part of the problem right here. Nebulous language that contradicts yourself, because if this is to keep minors out of SL, validation cannot be voluntary. Unfortunately, as soon as accounts were opened up without any requirement for credit cards or any other identity source you opened the doors of SL to minors, regardless of the TOS.
Especially troubling is the person saying his 14 year old niece was able to verify using this system. If it’s that broken, what use is it?
I haven’t been able to easily find verification from Aristotle that they do not save data. Perhaps some of the issue could be eased by posting this where people are more able to see it.
December 9th, 2007 at 9:51 PM
@ 33 KittyCat Rosebud Says:
“And yes,.. many Teens have PayPal accounts.”
Kitty, even if it were “normal”, does PayPal run an additional “age verification” in order to prevent children to get access to adult material??
No, the only logical reason for LL method in general is to prepeare the merging of the teen grid with the main grid.
If age verification (in spite of all the critical issues listed on this blog), then age verifivation for the entire grid, not only for considered “adult” parts of this grid. The LL method will never work technically and will cause an even huger wave of annoying actions by those self-declared moralists.
December 9th, 2007 at 9:54 PM
@46
Forgive a third post, but I am still furious with LL over the VAT issue.
I do NOT trust LL anymore on anything.
I will remain in SL because of the community of sane and interesting people I know there, but my second life is now overshadowed by a dark cloud of LL incompetence. What a drag.
December 9th, 2007 at 9:57 PM
*Bangs Hands On Table* ITS A CONSPIRICY DAMNIT!!
Nuff Said~~~
December 9th, 2007 at 9:58 PM
Once again. EVERY conversation, EVERY IM, EVERY purchase, EVERY movement, and EVERY action goes through THEIR servers. It would be trivial for Linden Labs to store this information FOREVER.
Additionally, though you can create an account anonymously, Linden Labs probably keeps records of all logins and the IP addresses that they come from. The viewer sends data derived from the computers network card (MAC address) and hard drive (serial number) during each session.
They already know who you are.
The question is, have you EVER done ANYTHING in SL that you wouldn’t want to become public knowledge? Today, tomorrow, 10 years from now, or anytime in the future?
December 9th, 2007 at 10:04 PM
Make it mandatory ASAP
December 9th, 2007 at 10:07 PM
** The question is, have you EVER done ANYTHING in SL that you wouldn’t want to become public knowledge? Today, tomorrow, 10 years from now, or anytime in the future? **
awww Damn, i’m a Stripper and i make money taking my virtual clothes off… and know you what… The whole world wide can know that, i had nothing to hide… mmm… *repeating slowly and seductivly* “nothing to hide ;)”
December 9th, 2007 at 10:09 PM
I can’t let this drop.
Age verification IS the crux of many problems in second life. Until LL stopped requiring credit card information this really wasn’t a problem. IF you want to put this in perspective Robin let’s look at a real solution that can be implemented now.
How about moving with the same speed that LL showed last week in trying to prevent the quicktime exploitation.
Put up a similiar message tomorrow that halts ALL logins. Either a person put up a credit card or PayPal information or they do not get back into second life effective — IMMEDIATELY. Then send a simple letter to every VERIFIED PAYEE that the payments are being made to an ADULT ENTERTAINMENT VENUE. Specify that their payments are being made to a source of ADULT ENTERTAINMENT. It might be difficult for parents or anyone else to misconstrue what is taking place. Your lawyers I am sure can clean up the language to make it bulletproof under the laws of most countries. Let’s quit pussy footing around. In the last year the main source of entertainment has been reading this blog. I bought a sim and wanted to add to it. I CANNOT and WILL NOT buy anything else until you resolved three big questions that are not being answered.
1). Age Verification we know it will become mandatory let’s just state it now
2). Tier increase after 1Q2008 either yea or nay
3). You vouchifying in a document that you will pay any costs incurred in identity theft traced back to the current age verification system.
Otherwise Robin, and don’t take this personally, you might as well resign. YOUR community doesn’t believe you, you dictate, you don’t communicate and when an unpopular topic comes up it happens late at night and NO LINDENS, ESPECiaLLY you are around to discuss it.
A large percentage of your clients are NOT on American PST if you don’t want to provide them or others who work to support their SL habit then get a night watchman/woman.
Why not require only VERIFIED ACCOUNT HOLDERS to post to the blog. Or better yet, for one day. JUST ONE DAY open the blog to questions 1 question per person and then spend one DAY just answering those questions. If the questions are assinine then tell us they are assinine and state why. If you are the COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER - then communicate otherwise call yourself the PROPAGANDA minister and be done. (on that subject wasn’t Teriq Qusease of Iran hanged?)
December 9th, 2007 at 10:09 PM
Why does a venue like the ADULT grid need to be protected from minors??? Does every outlet need to be made child safe because parents cannot control or educate their own children? Why must adults flag themselves, Tim @ 2, as pornographers because they engage in legal SIMULATED adult behavior?
And nice to see LL is admitting they plan to cave to any Moral Majoprity laws country by country. Once again, individually or legislatively, freedom dies and griefers rule.
December 9th, 2007 at 10:10 PM
quoting from before posts:
“YOU may have been assured they won’t store data, but WE have not. In the end we’re talking liability and contract law, and as such WE haven’t signed anything with Aristotle/Integrity and therefore have no guarantees. They can give you as many guarantees as they like, it’s not YOUR personal data at stake here… but if you go bankrupt, your TOS says that nobody can be held responsible for any data collected by Second Life. This effectively frees Aristotle/Integrity of all barriers to use our data, since they haven’t made an express agreement with us to the contrary. Can you address this issue?”
Yes I woud like to see the contract also. You ask us to be 100% open about who we are so why don’t you be 100% open to us as well? Or give all all of us our own contract with Aristotele which assures us if they do collect our information we can sue them because they break their own contract?
And I like to see that the TOS will be changed so that if Linden Labs merges OR go bankrupt none of our information will be given out - so in the case your contract all of a sudden doesn’t comes out to be 100% safe, at least it won’t make it legal for you to play with our information.
We need 100% legal safety not just promises. Saying things in a blog won’t protect us legally.
December 9th, 2007 at 10:10 PM
I would like to point out that the later half of last year an outsourced Linden gave out client information freely to myself concerning other SL residents. I then reported it to Linden Lab. The person in question was given a 2 weeks suspension and then put back into the work pool by the third party company.
He gave information such as RL name, address, DOB, Linden balance and more. Even tough Linden Labs no longer has a contract with this particular company, I want to say that the possibility for abuse always exists, so yes we must all be cautious.
If any of you would like to know more, please visit my blog http://mmobox.blogspot.com/
December 9th, 2007 at 10:14 PM
“Although previous global testing of the Integrity system with a smaller sample showed a nearly 80% success rate, broader implementation has been disappointing, with too many failures.”
That “nearly 80%” number sounds very unimpressive. However, since you then say “…broader implementation has been disappointing, with too many failures.”…that, then, makes the sub-80% number sound respectable–at least, from your perspective.
Perhaps, I’m interpreting this number incorrectly, but, if not… If Intergrity is accurate less than 80% of the time, then I don’t doubt you will have some under 18z on the main grid. What I think is worse is that you will force close to one fourth of all legitimate SL residents through some kind of wringer to “prove” their age.
I mean, if you are going to insist on this from residents, you need to use a system that produces a whole lot better than “a nearly 80% success rate.”
(for example, does this number also apply to Integrity’s success at purging personal data from its system after that “…one-time match. Period.”?)
December 9th, 2007 at 10:21 PM
Thank you Lindens, for pushing an ILLEGAL system onto my head.
The second the sims I regular are forced to verification, the day I pull my 30$ a month contribution to the grid out! That day, I LEAVE SL.
I’m not about to break the very laws of my own nation just to cater to your obviously ignorant method of self-regulation, especially as Aristotle DOES KEEP PERSONAL INFO ON FILE. Your claiming so makes me trust you even less as Aristotle already HAS been found saving personal data for later selling!
So thank you, LL, thank you for destroying your own world.
December 9th, 2007 at 10:24 PM
The only question I have not seen answered…. are we expected to use this right now, for real, even though its listed as a beta test? Or should we not flag out land cuz its still in beta… and wait for release?
December 9th, 2007 at 10:24 PM
“We’ve been assured by them that they are in compliance with all relevant privacy laws”… I’ll bet they sold you a bridge and some Florida swamp land with that same assurance.
My big issue is that LL leaves the door wide open to let minors into SL and expects each and every sim owner to shoulder the responsibility of flagging their land according to some nebulous “adult content” yardstick.
The responsibility of LL is to guard the door and keep minors out: PERIOD. Anything less does not absolve them from their liability to maintain an ADULT business. They refuse to do their job as gatekeeper and are trying to lay it back on the sim owners, and it just ain’t gonna fly in court.
…and don’t get me started on the ethics of the company they chose to verify the fraction of members that will get age verified.
December 9th, 2007 at 10:30 PM
@ 58
“.. made to a source of ADULT ENTERTAINMENT.”
Michael, guess why they try to make this “parcel flagging” nonsense reasonable? It o only to PREVENT the whole darned thing going adult. They want to open it for the Teens, for economical and PR reasons. This is not about “children protection” at all, it is another attempt to let the residents bleed for a task LL itself should be capable of. Imagine what will happen if a guy like Tim will discover a Giger sculpture on a non-flagged parcel??? Or a Balzac copy? Sheesshh, this will be fun…
December 9th, 2007 at 10:30 PM
Blog above: “Thus, there is no collecting, using, storing, or transferring of your personal information beyond the one-time match. Period. Certainly, you are not being asked to place your information in a database.”
May 2007: “[10:12] Daniel Linden: it’s vaulted to provided a government-required audit trail for two years, but neither Linden or Integrity can access that data unless an audit is initiated.”
Vaulting is impossible without storing the data somewhere, most likely in a third-party site in addition to Integrity. It won’t be accessed UNLESS some government agency requires it. So am I right in assuming that a person getting a divorce could subpoena or legally request avatar identity information (or better yet Homeland Security could) from Integrity now as well as SL, and expect to get it if it was still vaulted?
Oh goodie.
And another question: what verification mechanism does LL have in place to ensure that Integrity will not share the information gathered with its’ parent company, Aristotle? You say this confidentiality is contractually enforced. How will LL know if Integrity violates the contract? Or is LL simply blindly trusting them? How … sweet.
December 9th, 2007 at 10:31 PM
Of all the options, it seems that LaeMiQian in post #39 has the best system.
You really ought to try it.
The other systems requiring residents to show a SSN or credit card number can be circumvented very simply. Almost any child can get a parent’s SSN or credit card number in a day or so. I knew my mother’s SSN when I was 11, and I wasn’t even trying to pull any stunts.
I personally will not trust Aristotle with my SSN….UNLESS they sign a contract with ME to reimburse me 10x any losses or misappropriations or unpermitted profit-taking due to fraud, commercial misuse, or identity theft. I’m pretty sure they would never agree to such a contract.
December 9th, 2007 at 10:32 PM
Robin,
The problem with all of this is multi-fold, and what’s so frustrating is that it’s a problem Linden Labs is creating for itself.
The core issue is that minors *might* run into pornographic materials on SL. However, there are millions, probably tens of millions, of dedicated porn sites where it’s not a matter of “maybe”, porn is their entire raison d’etre. Yet all of those sites require only a credit card or bank account as ‘age verification’. So, WHY is SL, a site with just a possibilty of a minor seeing porn, taking it upon itself to institute such far more draconian (and completely flawed) measures to verify age? It makes no logical sense at all, and the solution to all of this is glaringly obvious: If LL wants to offer FREE accounts, fine- but those accounts should be banned from adult flagged parcels. PAID accounts which by definition require age verification in the form on credit card or bank account are automatically ‘verified’ and allowed access to adult flagged parcels. Robin, if this form of verification is good enough for the genuine porn operators, it should be more the suffcient to cover LL.
Concerning this whole system you’re using… Look, I’m a very long term (permanent) American expat. I travel constantly all over the world for my work. Do you have any idea how many countries there are with no funtional government? And you expect them to be able to ‘document verify’? This doesn’t just apply to disconnected third world countries- take Ukraine for instance. Kiev now has a higher per-captia internet connection rate than does Paris. Yet Ukraine has not had a functioning government for long time and I assure you there is no way on earth this Integrity company can verify anything there- and there are many many many other countries with the same story! Plenty of people with internet and money, but no organized central authorities. If Intergrity is telling Linden Labs that they can verify data in these places, they are flat out lying to you. This is such a common problem with American companies- they want to engage the World via the internet to do business, but they see everything through the prism of America and just assume “if it works here, it must work the same everywhere” and then try to apply American ‘norms’ to the rest of the planet.
My Slovak girlfriend (who got me into SL in the first place) tried to verify the other day. Passport- failed. National ID card- failed. Birth ID #- failed. Me being an expat I KNOW your ‘Integrity’ friends will never be able to get that sorted (for sure there is no accessable data base for residency permits for them for verify against). So here we are, 2 still fairly new SL addicts, we’ve got 2 premium accounts now, 4 parcels of land, and 2 upstart businesses in SL… and then you drop this on us! Soon, neither of us will be able to enter any ‘adult’ flagged parcels, like we just a couple of children playing on the internet! I gave you my platunum business visa for god’s sake! But that’s not enough to prove I’m an ‘adult”. Wow.
The technology of SL is amazing. What you guys are building is just incredible. But some of the managerial decisions I’ve already seen LL making in the short time I’ve been here… I don’t mean to sound so harsh, but frankly, they are of very questionable competence. Lab coat guys generally do not make good business managers. I think this is quite likely the problem we’re seeing here.
Pleeeeease.. See the obvious and come up with a more rational idea. Intergrity is taking you (and us) for a ride.
Thanks,
Ric
December 9th, 2007 at 10:35 PM
Well, before I posted I thought I would actually try out the age verification to see how it works. I was able to use just the last 4 of my social, which is pretty common these days for lots of companies. It was simple, easy, painless, and actually involved a lot less personally identifiable information than most identity verifications I’ve seen.
I’m not sure what the big deal is.
December 9th, 2007 at 10:41 PM
Please provide your mothers maiden name, to log into the pretend world where you are a monkey with three foreheads that farts jello flames.
We now require fingerprints in order for you to buy a pulsing particle prim uterus.
Linden Lab is your mother and father.
December 9th, 2007 at 10:45 PM
“I’m not sure what the big deal is.”
A part of the big deal is that you will not have to verify that you are under 18 in order to access the non-flagged part of SL. You could be a potential “pornographer”, “pervert” or any other kind of abnormal trying to “poison” the Underaged, unrestricted.
Kidding.
But think of it. I am not against age verification, but the way LL does it does NOT contribute to the claimed aim, which is “protection of children” (IS IT, or did i miss something?)