At the same time they seem pragmatic about putting their mark on standards. It seems to me like we’re at a confluence: a regulatory tipping point where there really is pressure to bring laws to bear on online harms affecting kids; and a socio-technological moment where “gotta distinguish kids from adults” can realistically happen separately from “…by handing over personal info directly to shady random counterparts.”
Individual smartphones with biometrics are these days a whole-of-society norm, technologists have developed a mature body of cryptographic work to assert ZKPs, the US population seem to have lost their aversion to centralized ID systems… and the periodic moral panic about the kids seems to be at a high tide.
In the same way that Apple don’t prevent, say, Safari from being used for prurient purposes, or Final Cut Pro from being used to edit naughty bits, I don’t see why they wouldn’t want an opinionated implementation as a concept develops of a generic “digital tool to assert your age, and only that.” Especially since Android is doing it and leaning into the privacy angle.
I expect Apple will implement a general privacy-preserving arbitrary attribute proof, with age proof just one of the things it could be used for, probably using something similar to the library that Google recently released [1].
Zero knowledge proof smart contract verification called by the site interested in your age. You provide your public key wallet with its government issued soul bound NFT of your identification.
This can be done, its not that crazy, it just requires a bunch of people to get their heads out of their sand in regards to tech and blockchain, which admittedly might be a harder problem.
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Additonal thought- if you don’t understand what I’m saying or have a negative reaction just plug the comment + thread context into an LLM and see what it says / ask for a clearer explanation.
