Passport checks for social media

[m00ngirl]

The Government announced today that you’ll need to show a passport or driving license (or undergo a credit check) just to get a social media account from Spring next year.

This is part of the so-called “social media ban” for under 16s.

Are you willing to send these big tech companies photos of your own passport for an account..?

Are you happy with your teenage children sending their passports (if they have one) over the internet?

Will teenagers get around it?

It's such a dumb idea and almost certainly easily circumvented with a VPN.

Surely you can just photoshop a passport age section?

you can’t fool technology that easily.

im quite in favour of this idea. We have grown up with anon social media and it’s led to much unpleasantness. Knowing your identify wasn’t secret could prevent a lot of hurt.

With online passport checks you have to scan your passport via an app, it’s not as easy as photo shopping a passport age.

If Mumsnet were an affected company, and you had to do a passport check to keep your account, would you?

You, and indeed all of us, are anonymous on here….

Police can identify account holders who commit offences. I’m not sure why foreign tech companies need millions of innocent people’s IDs though.

Nope. I like social media but it’s not an essential part of my life.

I wonder how much of my life I’d get back if my accounts were suddenly locked???

Foreign tech companies don’t need them. It will be the law, in the uk.

Nope and it would probably be for the better, it’s a right time sucker

Course not, I would just read a book instead

No I wouldn't comply.

What happens if someone does not have a passport or driving licence and has no credit history? It must happen!

@m00ngirl Do you have a link to the official source of this government announcement?

I saw this this morning and there was a government page on it, it listed stuff like Facebook

No, I wouldn't be giving my passport or driving licence details to these companies. I only use Mumsnet and Instagram (don't post anything, just follow some accounts).
I'd be happy to be blocked - it would make me do something more productive and not waste hours on what is often a load of rubbish. I might be able to regain a concentration span of more than 5 minutes!

Before all these panic posts, you’d need to read the privacy policy for those specific companies. Many countries already have these in place with a third party screening those and deleting the actual raw image. For example - company X screens the ID and tells Facebook yes or no. Facebook never sees the ID.

Link to the story

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/social-media-ban-driving-licences-passports-credit-g7mzrxz8j

Yes, millions don’t have passport or driving licence.

Particularly younger, older and poorer people.

The people the Labour Party are supposed to stand up for?

So the hackers just go after the id verification companies and extract tens of millions of IDs, eg https://uk.pcmag.com/security/167593/company-behind-leak-of-drivers-licenses-says-hacker-had-access-for-5-months

I thought that but read somewhere about some sites that claimed they did checks like that and then thousands of IDs got hacked. So either they lied or the system was hacked all along? One was actually a women’s forum and the photos ended up on 4chan.

I can imagine Mumsnet and certain Facebook groups etc would be a target for hackers….

It won’t be the UK Government actually doing the ID checks, they are legally requiring the companies to do them

I think you have to choose if it's worth giving your information out to companies, things like the bank and other essential things, yes, but Mumsnet, I don't think so

Yes it happens a lot more than people realise!

Speaking as a person who was 'hacked' years ago, it caused me so many problems as I actually had my identity stolen and I also had the pleasure of someone in London using my N.I. number which took me nearly a year to sort out with HMRC.

I'm very wary of giving any information out now.

Even this year I was informed that a couple of websites I subscribe to have been hacked and my name/email has been compromised.

So is everyone just going to leave social media when these government ID checks come in in a few months?

I definitely won’t send the companies my ID, I will try to get round it with a VPN or something. But if I’m thinking that, and I don’t care much about social media, surely all the kids are going to do the same.

Also I expect more than a few parents I know will just set up adult accounts for their kids… keep them quiet etc…

Omg, my worst nightmare!! So sorry that happened to you!

Surprised to see so many saying they would welcome it because it might help them be more productive- me too, and relieved it’s not just me! The invention of the smart phone has not been a positive thing for me overall with my personality type/neurodivergence, as I tend to be obsessive and go down too many rabbit holes, get addicted to stupid games etc. I seem to be able to exercise very little willpower over it really, and feel I could benefit from something that would make it harder for me to lose time on it. Bring it on.