UK Politics

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UK Age Verification Data Confirms What Critics Always Predicted: Mass Migration To Sketchier Sites (www.techdirt.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by IcyToes@sh.itjust.works to c/uk_politics@feddit.uk

3 comments fedilink hide all child comments

A month old now, but it's important on the unnecessary surveillance creep we keep having. First this, then digital ID.

Worrying levels of authoritarianism that solves nothing. Government are supposed to represent us, not ignore us and treat us like children. Who are they working for?

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[–] kbal@fedia.io 23 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Sure, but that's only one side of the equation. You have to consider the benefits as well. Not everyone is smart enough to avoid the system, so in addition to sending users off to sketchier sites, we're also sending vast amounts of highly sensitive personal data and some amount of money off to sketchy age verification companies.

[+] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 10 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] Zombie@feddit.uk 9 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

We live our digital lives this way because we have the skills to do so. 91% of us in the UK have the ability to use the internet. This is a remarkable achievement – and it’s important to continue the work to close the remaining gap and include those who are still without the skills or the access to use the internet.

But we also need to move beyond skills to understanding. Nearly all UK internet users have the digital skills to use a search engine, but only half know how to distinguish between search results and adverts. Around two-thirds of our digitally skilled population can shop and bank online – but a third don’t make any checks before entering their personal or financial information online. More than 1.4 million of us work in tech-related jobs – but, as the recent WannaCry attack showed us, hardly anyone is investing the time, resources or expertise to keep our systems safe. The list goes on.

Becoming a nation of people with digital understanding will be different and more complicated than becoming a nation of people with digital skills. For starters, digital skills are tangible and teachable: download this app, program this device. They also reinforce the idea that digital is something we do – time-bound and transactional.

But in a world where we spend more time online than we do asleep and where everything from our televisions to our kettles can connect to the internet, digital is something we are. Understanding is not a race to be run and won. It is a lifelong process of learning, one unique to each of us.

Martha Lane Fox, Chancellor of The Open University

https://doteveryone.org.uk/2017/09/house-of-lords-does-digital/

I would recommend reading the whole speech, it's very insightful. It was 8 years ago now...

[–] IcyToes@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 weeks ago

Thanks for sharing. It's got some really interesting context there. Often people who aren't digitally skilled are missed as an important stakeholder.

I don't think corporate interests want the population to have digital understanding though.