We seem to talk about vastly different things or from complete different technical perspectives here, so I will take a few steps back and simplify it:

I, the government, issue your ID (with all the usual stuff making if forgery-proof). On the front is all your personal info, on the back a big marker that you are a legal adult.

If you want to buy something age-limited you just show the backside of your ID. I as the government have all your data but don’t know where you use your ID, the guy checking your ID has no data because he can trust me that I checked your age and provided a forgery-proof ID personally for you.

That’s it. That’s the whole (simplified) process. And you can reacreate exactly this concept digitally with basic cryptographic methods for online use.

So were is the problem with such a model? (Yes, I know that this is NOT what they are planning. But that’s the whole point. It is possible, the governments are just not interested because they actually don’t want to protect oyur privacy and outsourcing other methods to private companies -that do it cheaply because they want your data- is more profitable.)

I was obviously not talking about random paper-based passports but the one ID that is already standard and required for every citizen. And that one -if you decide to give it away- is tied to you, has your identity and is not easily replaced. But requiring to submit all that information on a low level internet verification process is unneccessary, when just “yes, I have that card proving I have the proper age!” is perfectly functional for that purpose.

There is no one-size-fits all solution for security. But for basic stuff like acccess to online stuff an anonymous solution based on your ID is perfectly workable. Nobody is preventing additional biometric checks for more important stuff, it’s the general things in day-to-day life we need to primarily protect from data kraken trying to profile us to make money.

I’m talking about things you can do technically.

Governments don’t plan completely idiotic ideas because they don’t know better but because their actual reason for choosing the system they chose is NOT creating a workable system that protects your privacy.

That’s the whole point. Articles like this aren’t completely wrong. The systems planned are indeed a risk to privacy rights. But we need to stop pretending that it’s an accident and the government simply don’t know better or there is no better solution at all. Actual solutions exist and we need to talk about the fact that those are ignored intentionally because a working system that protects your privacy is simply not the goal here.

Which is the reason I talked about the passport. It doesn’t have to be unique, just a flag cryptographically signed by the issueing government.

Yes, I can still give away my passport then so that someone can get into adult stuff on the internet… or I can open it for them. So that’s not exactly the use case I’m that actually about.

But that’s all missing the point. There is simply no interest in developing a proper system. Just like terrorism, or child-pornography, age verification is just another pretense to establish surveilance, weaken privacy rights and monetize us by outsourcing everything to private companies (purely concidently usually connected to AI and very interested in all data they can get theri greedy little hands on). We can discuss the technical issues for years, but the people actually planning that stuff won’t care because that’s not the actual agenda.

Obviously he’s a very conservative moron that would like to sweep everything under the rug and who already tried to paint parallels between criticism of the church and anti-jewish progroms.

In our wonderful click-bait and enrage-farming times, you would of course not see this as a story If he were sane or in any way representing the majority.

Just imagine your passport just has a separate set of information saved “This person is legally an adult” signed of by the government issueing them. No transfer of any other data neccessary. You don’t need to know their name, their age or anything else. And you don’t need some database to be queried. You just get the certified “I have the proper age to access this”-card build into their regular papers.

Your government… you know… the people that already have all your data and issue your passport… cannot include a flag (properly cryptographically signed by them) that tells a service “Yes, the guy that just inserted this valid passport is an adult. You don’t need to get any other info. We already checked for you.”, no other connection or transfer of data neccessary?

That’s my point. In the future you won’t see glued down batteries anymore, just like you won’t have company-owned repairshop monopolies. That’s already addressed. It will simply require some time until all members have put those new rules into national law. So why would they include reapirability in a new label system coming into effect much later.

You are correct in general but the issue with repairability is already addressed separately^(*) so it doesn’t make sense to make it a big point here.

^(*)See: Right to repair, the accessability of spare parts for end consumers in particular.

No, these rights work perfectly well with age verification systems in general. It’s the planned implementation that is bullshit. And that’s not a coincidence but intentional to -again- sell us surveilance through the back door.

(For reference: No one but the EU and member’s governments are more qualified to produce an actual, working age verification system in the form of “Yes, that person has the required age. No, you don’t need to know any other personal information because we already checked and certified it”. Because they already have the data base neccessary. But you can’t outsource such a system to private companies that actually want to get paid mainly in aquired data…)

Isn’t it funny how -no matter which country- all those right-wing nationalists publically pushing for isolationism, more independence and leaving international cooperations are always agreeing on advocating for Russian (and other authoritarian) interests somehow? I wonder who wrote the playbook they are all following…

More importantly here than being “dead in 10 years” is “breaking his word and contracts within weeks anyway”…

Clearly Germany is not doing enough to put a stop to the rising conservatism movement

What do you mean by they are not doing enough? They are basically doing nothing else to the point of not actually doing any constructive work anymore.

Every single party is heavily competing about who can move faster to the far-right and parrot nazi narratives louder to get those voters back. And if it totally surprisingly doesn’t work (who would have thought that alienating some voters while telling the others that nazi propaganda lies are totally okay as long as they are the ones telling them is the perfect campaign… for the AfD) they double down again and again. 🤡 🤮

I don’t understand the benefit of it tbh except for overhauling everything to look the same?

It’s not about looking the same but being produced by the same producer to the same standards in huge numbers.

Lack of economy of scale is the by far biggest drawback of European military production and makes them totally uncompetitive.

Yeah, he and his party have steadily talked about delivering Taurus, to then initiated votes in parliament that did get much less yes votes in total then just Merz’ party alone had. He talked loudly about how he would totally send Taurus if he had to decide. Now he has to decide so he moved to goalposts to “Europeans need to decide it”. And he will continue like this.

He was also very steady on the absolute non-negotiability of Germany’s debt brake for years and through the last election campaign… until he negotiated the biggest debt package in Germany’s history days after the election, then pushed it through with the still existing old parliament (and with the exact same parties he refused to even discuss this for years) as he doesn’t have the majority in the new parliament.

Speaking of the new parliament… with right-wing morons now the second biggest party because Merz spend years parroting their talking points. All while steadily rejecting the idea to ever work with them. Until he tried to push an anti-immigration package through with their votes just two weeks before the election. Then he turned around and pretended that he did not cooperate with them as he would obviously never do this… oh and the 100 thousands of protesters spontaneously taking to the streets all over the country because of that massive breach of his word and the historical precedence of voting through legislation with the far right were called insane lefties and paid actors (also insinuating that they should not ahve their consitutional right to protest).

In short: Merz lies when he opens his mouth. He’s basically what you get when you order Trump on Wish (not coincidently his inner circle spend a lot of time in the last years forging good connections to MAGA morons, learning from them how to campaign on culture war bullshit and lies… also in a similar vein those same people are -now that speaking too favorable about Trump would cost them votes for now- already advocating a normalisation of that other group of Putin puppets, the far-right AfD).

And the media keeps pretending that Merz is not rotating through the exact same couple of lies again and again and again… 🤣

Reducing EU citizens with the priviledge of studying in Germany for free and involved in well documented illegal behavior to “simple suspicion should be enough to deport anyone” is a perfect example of reductio ad absurdum.

Also I did in no way hide behind the law but talked about the fact that we SHOULD discuss the actual laws, while those people instead chose to just lie and spread a narrative.

And so I will simply ignore you, as you obviously have no interest in arguing in good faith.

By law they can be deported for severe enough infractions without going through the whole chain and several legal instances until finally convicted. We could discuss if that makes sense… but that’s not the point here.

The point is that they are accused of illegal occupation of university facilities (inclusing property damage), obstruction of arrests, insulting police officers as fascists, chanting “From the river to the sea”-slogans (illegal in Germany)… all well documented.

And yet they don’t even try to argue about the law or the circumstances. They just straight out lie telling everyone that they did nothing and are deported because they are pro-Palestine. And they rant about unlawful intimidation tactics by the government when in fact it is legal.

Seriously I’m impressed that none of those “reports” has started to talk about “thought crimes” and similiar bullshit yet just to divert from what they actually did and tell the fairy tale of the evil fascist Germans that supress any deviating opinion.