This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
The UK government is so god damn dumb.
if a phone is tied to a svc acct like a telco provider- age verification should be automatic as THAT provider cannot open an acct for a child.
FUCKING THANK YOU!
I'm not in favour of any of the age restriction stuff UK government is doing.
Good argument, but:
Phones in the UK can be bought without a contract and untied to any network.
Pay as you go SIM cards can be bought without a contract.
Credit cards used to make purchases online require users to be 18 or over. Debit cards on the other hand can be issued to those under 18 (but a bank account will require evidence of ID, address, age). https://www.gohenry.com/uk/blog/financial-education/what-age-can-you-get-a-debit-card-in-the-uk
> can't have apps without an account
> cave have an account without a loicense
Will this finally kill off the "Apple is private enough" mantra I always hear?
Apple is doing this instead of requiring app developers to implement and maintain their own system, which is what Android is doing.
The question comes down to who trust more, any random app developer or a single entity.
For example this means meta doesn't have to verify their iOS users because iOS already has.
I'm sure most people in this thread are coming at this all from a morally superior position about how they don't use meta but they also don't use iOS devices so this is another bit of outrage.
No one here is actually anything besides get upset about something that doesn't effect them. The internet has become a silly place.
To put it simply, I do in fact care a great deal, because Android is also moving towards centralization from Google. It's bad. It's all bad.
These companies can't be trusted with their identity, and they've been demonstrably untrustworthy for over a decade. Have you heard of Total Information Awareness and its spawn? PRISM? Palantir?
Yes. It's all bad. The solution is to get rid of these political stooges. Dealing with capitalists is a different topic. There is some cross over with the poltical stoogery but that's all there is.
Wow, thats fucked. I hope Australia doesn't decide to do this as well. This shit is happening so quickly at the moment
Mixed feelings about this.
However, ethical questions aside, and from a purely legal conformation standpoint, if the phone validates the user is over 18 and passes only that info as a token to whatever application or website requests it, then it's a good implementation. It means elimination of multiple validation requirements, minimal transfer of data to third parties, fewer sources holding personal data, etc. Whether it works that way remains to be seen.
Why is there no privacy respecting solution for age verification? Like the government giving you some sort of token that says you’re over 18 and that’s it?
There is.
It's called Parental Controls.
It also does a fairly good job at preventing stuff from getting through.
One of the big issues right now is that there's a lot of sexualized content on social media right now that's bypassing parental controls because the social media services are doing a poor job of limiting that content when encountering a parental controlled device.
Because its not about age verification, its about tracking and controlling you and making a privacy respecting solution isn't compatible with that.
What if I told you that by regulation, the EU age verification system has to be anonymous and that it’s only the AUKUS countries that are moving forward in a way where anonymity is “a nice to have”.
Denmark’s system, which is a front-runner implementation in the EU, is going to be fully ZKP.
And yes it’s basically built with tokens.
You identify with a government system in an app. The services issues you signed tokens that are anonymous. You hand these anonymous tokens over to the sites that demand proof of age.
Another reason sideloading is important.
Sideloading isn’t a real term - there is only loading a better OS than whatever spy-tech google is offering.
You can’t “sideload” hardware you own - you just install whatever software you like and prefer
I've been using the term side loading since the late 90s/early 2000s for installing software or files to a device via a transfer cable. And by the time Android came along, the early app development community was using the term to push the app to your device via ADB. And from there it's expanded from transfer cable push to download and install from an unmanaged 3rd party source on a mobile computing device.
So the term has existed in some form throughout the tech/power user community before modern mobile computing. Now did Apple and Google usurp the term? Ehhh, possibly? I've yet to encounter somebody that uses sideloading to mean something negative, but I'm sure there is a group out there that does. I'm not convinced that group is large enough for me to stop using language I started using nearly 30 years ago to mean something specific. "Why use more, less precise, words when this single term says it already?"
Yea sorry but I think this misses the point entirely. No one is arguing etymology, nor does the word carry a negative connotation inherently
The issue is that using the term sideloading makes it seem like you’re doing something other than “installing software,” which is truly without editorialization what is happening. Referring to it as “sideloading” is seen widely as editorialization.
So fighting against this new understanding of the term is either pedantry for the sake of it, or you have some sort of stake in Google perhaps? Either way the worst case scenario is people use a word you don’t agree with - but the upside is someone might realize they’re being lied to when told they don’t own their hardware and the decisions associated
So fighting against this new understanding of the term is either pedantry for the sake of it, or you have some sort of stake in Google perhaps?
Great use of a bad reason fallacy with a touch of ad hominem in an attempt to discredit.
Your claim is that the term has been used to mean something negative. You present no evidence to back this up other than your feelings.
I don't discredit that major corporations do evil shit.
However, I presented you with the experience I've had with the term dating back nearly 30 years where I, and the people I talked tech with, was sideloading files onto our PDA and Rio MP3 players.
The term started out as a technical distinction in the circles I ran in (Detroit area) back then.
Aside from your feelings on the term, I see no valid justification to stop using it when I'm trying to clearly communicate something. I work in tech (and no, it's not Google or Apple. Fuck publicly traded companies) as a lead on the platform support group, and I need to be able to clearly communicate with my peers and reports. Sideload is a widely recognized term in the spaces I have worked in.
I'm not going to stop using a precise technical term because some internet strangers have unfounded negative feelings about the possible marketing connotations.
Present me with evidence that it actually means what you're saying and maybe I'll consider working on making the language change. Just like I've done with actually real problematic industry terms (master/slave, black/white lists. Etc).
Please do as you wish, I’m just happy others are getting the message. Have a great day
Jesus Tittyfucking Christ, yes it is. I'm not typing out "installing software from outside the Google Play Store" every time, so you can go away.
Time for more users to adopt GrapheneOS
GrapheneOS is great and all but I refuse to willingly give google a single dollar for their hardware.
When GrapheneOS can be installed on any device is when I’ll gladly make that switch, and hopefully one day Apple iPhones can run other operating systems.
Buy a used one then. Google won't see your money then.
Or wait a little longer. https://piunikaweb.com/2025/11/19/grapheneos-to-release-non-pixel-flagship-phone-in-q4-2026-or-in-2027/
In a revealing discussion with David Bombal, the GrapheneOS team confirmed they are actively working with a “top-tier Android OEM” to bring their hardened operating system to non-Google flagship devices.
Increasing the value of an used second hand market devices can empower other people to seek the Google Pixel devices as a decisive buy considering they keep their value for a longer time compared to other brands.
For god's sake can corporations and governments stop trying to ~~control and survey people~~ do the job of parents and society. If parents are not doing their job then you need better awareness and education not to take over.
no problem, I'll just use apps from outside of the App Store, right?
You could, if you lived in the EU :)
When we were young adults and couldn't buy our own booze, we made it. Let's do something like that here.
Teens can travel alone and setup their phone in France or Ireland, or buy their phone from a dealer. All the cool kids will have free phones and be on snapchat, forcing everybody else to follow suit.
