The discussion around "age verification" in systemd/XDG has been largely focused against the California law. But honestly, there's a much deeper problem there.
Firstly, the data collected. The question initially asked is "are you at least 18 years old?" However, that's not the data collected. In fact, the data collected is not even the age — it's the full birth date. It's a perfect example of collecting more data than you need, and a sensitive information too, and sharing it with any application that asks.
Secondly, the extended goal of "parental controls" used as a justification to collect more data. When you think about it, you realize how bad this is: it isn't the case of asking the user about their birth date (with the assumption that a kid will enter a fake date to workaround the limitations). It is effectively a tool for *parents* to impose restrictions on their children, which means that they are more likely to enter the real date to ensure that these restrictions work. And given how popular sharenting is today, do you really think they'd come up with a fake birth date that happens to roughly match their child's age?
This is simply irresponsible.
https://github.com/flatpak/xdg-desktop-portal/pull/1922
Rich Felker
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