As you all know, age verification has been becoming a bigger topic across the internet recently. More and more companies are starting to introduce systems that ask users to prove their age before they can access certain features.
Samsung is now joining this trend by introducing ID-based age verification for its users.
Google is also working on age verification for YouTube (yes, Google owns YouTube). There have also been talks about Google bringing ID age verification to Android users, but that is not the main topic of this post.
The main thing I want to talk about is Samsung partnering with a third-party company for their age verification system.
The company Samsung is working with is called Clear.
When I first heard about this, I started wondering how much personal information users would have to give away just to verify their age. Government IDs contain extremely sensitive information, and trusting a third-party company with that data is a serious concern.
Clear has previously had a data breach incident (from what I have seen), which made me question why companies continue choosing systems that require users to hand over their identity information.
Your ID is not something you can simply reset if it gets leaked. If a password gets compromised, you can change it. But personal identity information is much harder to protect once it is exposed.
This is why people need to start asking questions about these systems.
Do we really need to submit our IDs just to prove our age online? Are there better privacy-friendly options? How are companies protecting this information?
Everyone using Samsung devices should think carefully before using ID-based age verification or age estimation systems. We should be pushing for better privacy standards and more transparency from companies.
Please share this post so more people are aware of what is happening.