The proposal also said, “To the extent that there is any risk, it is easily outweighed by the benefits to consumers and businesses of using this [Facial Age Estimation] method.”
What benefits are there to consumers? Here’s one more way you can be denied access.
There has to be zero benefits for all adults, and tbh I don’t see the big risk for minors in accessing entertainment that they’re mature enough to intentionally seek out. Content descriptions and parents communicating with their kids should cover the vast majority of use cases.
All of it of course comes back to parents not actually wanting to parent. The rules are already in place. Literally all you have to do is not buy Timmy the game.
Not quite. The main groups who push this crap, IIRC, tend to be the same groups of far-right evangelicals who insist on homeschooling their children because “public schools are liberal indoctrination” and totally not because they’re trying to isolate their child so it’s easier to abuse them. ~Strawberry
So, let me get this straight. They want to peer into the homes and bedrooms of children all over the world? Gather photographs of them? 😬
And how do they expect this to work on a gaming PC with no camera?
Also, their comment form says not to submit any personally identifiable information, such as your name, and yet it requires you to submit your name, and it says your name will be shown publicly for all to see. To object to a violation of my privacy, I must…allow them to violate my privacy?
This is a good way to get a lot of people to never pay for a video game ever again, after Steam did a pretty good job convincing people not to pirate.
The image is then uploaded to Yoti’s backend server for estimation
“Images are immediately, permanently deleted, and not used by Yoti for training purposes.”
the facial recognition does not presential a substantial risk to parents’ privacy or potential biases.
“To the extent that there is any risk, it is easily outweighed by the benefits to consumers and businesses of using this [Facial Age Estimation] method.”
Pretty sure only one of those statements can be true. I’d go with “there is a risk”.
There’s no paradox. It says there is a risk, it is not substantial, and the benefits outweigh it.
The paradox is they start claiming no risk… only to step by step admit there is a risk, to end with a “but it’s all fine, trust us”.
Adding that the images are not going to be used for training purposes by them, is like a robber saying “I didn’t break into that store… just the one next door”.
I don’t like this any more than you, but that isn’t what they’re saying. “To the extent that there is any risk…” is not an admission that there is risk. It’s a CYA statement that means “even if there was a risk we haven’t mentioned/anticipated, it would be outweighed by these benefits.” “There is no substantial risk” is also not an admission of risk; it means they rule out any risk which is “substantial” (in their subjective assessment), but no competently made proposal like this would ever say “there is no risk whatsoever of any kind” because, again, CYA.
Meanwhile in reality, the risk is a certainty and the benefits don’t exist.
Right, assuming they’re not lying, which isn’t the kind of assumption you should ever make in the tech industry.
Definitely. Their marketing speak may not have any holes in it but wouldn’t trust them as far as I could throw them.
[My cat’s breath smells like cat food.]
I left my teens a long time ago, but I’m still constantly asked how high school is going for me. There is plenty of risk for an adult with this. Some of us just look like kids forever. 😬
I got ID’d the other day to buy beer. I’m almost 40.
What could remotely go wrong with creating a permanently online countrywide database of biometric data?
So… take more control away from the parents, who can decide for their own kids what they should and shouldn’t be playing. Parents are of the gaming generations now; they’re familiar with violence in video games.
“The ESRB has proposed that the FTC greenlight facial recognition technology as a method to detect a user’s age”
So little kids won’t ve able to play GTA San Andreas anymore? 🥺
What about adults that looks extremely young too ?
No games for young people or people of a race that the model was not trained on or anyone with a disfigurement or anyone in a dark room. Ever.
ESRB be dumb as hell.
@drdiddlybadger @LunarticBot well, yeah
Sports game with literal real money gambling = fun for all ages
Game where someone says a naughty word = 17+ kids would be destroyed by foul language
Yeah if I’m gonna get digital-carded to play a video game like I get regular-carded for booze at 34, I will absolutely just start pirating everything.
I’m like 30 I still put my birthday in as 4/20/69 like hell some website needs to know my exact birthday to view a videogame trailer.
I can’t be bothered to even put a meme birthday. I do 1/1 and then flick my scroll wheel down and click wherever it stops.
That was my first thought; I’m 20 but I look quite a bit younger in real life. I could have some trouble trying to play M rated games legitimately if this is widely implemented. One alternative I can see them using is submitting an ID to bypass, but that’s really invasive just to play a video game.
Neither will John Mulaney or Ben Brainard.
The proposal is still in a comment period, meaning anyone can submit commentary in opposition to this. Please, please submit comments, once this kind of thing is normalized it will spread like poison throughout our systems and institutions:
The ESRB actually made its request to the FTC back on June 2, but it’s only come to light now (via GamesIndustry) because the FTC is now seeking public comment on the plan. If you’d like to share your thoughts, you’ve got until August 21 to do so at federalregister.gov.
Encourage everyone you can who you think would care about privacy to comment as well.
If I submit a comment, my real name will be attached to it and shown to the world in perpetuity. That doesn’t seem safe.
It’s a public comment that you’re submitting on a federal site, yes, so that’s the judgement you need to make for yourself.
I personally don’t have a problem putting my name behind my words in this instance, but if you’re concerned about digital information being available there is an option to send a hard copy instead.
Sending a hard copy will still result in my real name being attached.
The last thing I need is to be harassed or worse by someone who thinks I’m a child abuser because I’m opposed to an initiative for “protecting” children. By submitting a comment, I’m putting myself on a list.
Is there any way to direct link to the place to leave the comments for this specific issue?
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Who asked for this?
Watching the decline of the internet in real-time is fucking depressing. How long before the FTC lets google “verify the integrity” of every data center in the US, completely eliminating all hope? Doesn’t even sound that crazy anymore.
I’m always amazed at the lengths the US game industry will go to on stuff like this rather than just having a proper legally enforceable rating system like PEGI.
What a nightmarish waste of time.
Also I can see kids outsmarting this thing in two seconds. Just wear a fake beard, a bit of makeup. Boom, Adult.
One step closer to Black Mirror
So, what happens if you don’t have a video camera hooked up to your console/gaming system of choice? Literally none of mine do. So now I need that as well as the game? Nah, the high seas be callin’, mateys!
