Apple's new iPhone update is restricting internet freedom in the UK

peterspath

This will probably be sneaked in, in more countries under the banner of age verification since more countries are proposing laws than ban children younger than 16 from social media. I am all for the ban of social media. But I am afraid that it will give us more government meddling and interfering on our devices. And that Apple and google are “forced” to do it. They of course have their own gains.

steve-atx-7600

Could there not be a reason that Apple made this choice involving their own legal risk? Sometimes what a law actually requires is up to what happens in court in the future.

AlBugdy

What do people expect when handing over their computing to a for-profit company? You can use various services where you knowingly hand over some of your data or offload a computational load, but with Apple it's like you're handing off the keys to your house, the plumbing, the electric wiring, the bricks, the alarm system and everything else to 1 entity. And you get upset when you realize you're just renting a property with less assurance you'd get from a slumlord in the ghetto. And for a lot of people that Apple property is their main computing property. Not a vacation home away from their desktop. Once they're evicted, once the slumlord disables the heating, increases the price of water or forbids you from inviting people, you have no other recourse.

dfgi

For most people the age verification won't be a problem. And anyway, there's always the option of acquiring and using an Android phone if you're unhappy with Apple's offering. I see "Big Brother Watch" has their own narrative to push though.

al_borland

As much as I'd like to see Apple fight this, shouldn't the blame be placed on the governments for compelling this, rather than on Apple? What is the alternative, pulling out of the UK? While I'd love this hard-line approach, as it might make other countries think twice, the stockholders probably wouldn't love it. > Laws like the Online Safety Act 2023 apply to websites and online services — not to entire phone operating systems. Doesn't this go back to companies like Meta lobbying to push the responsibility to the OS instead of taking it on themselves? I read they did that in the US, I can only assume they did it in the UK as well. Frankly, I'd rather have Apple qualify me as over 18 one time, and pass a simple boolean to a site vs having to upload proof (an ID, photos...) to every website I want to use. This may be the lesser of two evils.

userbinator

The amazing irony: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_(advertisement)

Aurornis

This article is not great. It doesn't link to anything other than itself and two of those links are "donate" and "subscribe". I found this Apple Insider page with more information and an actual description of how it works, from someone doing journalism instead of soliciting donations and subscriptions: https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/02/25/how-age-verificat... It's going to take some more searching to find an article that shows what age verification looks like for newer Apple accounts. According to that article if you have a long-standing Apple account and/or a credit card in your name in Apple Pay it might be enough to confirm you as 18+.

fxtentacle

While I agree with the general argument that iOS shouldn’t limit the user’s freedom, it looks to me like Apple actually put in some effort to make this as privacy-preserving as possible. The article somewhat glosses over it, but you can buy a PASS age verification card at the local post office for 15£. That one is widely accepted and it doesn’t contain unnecessary information that might cause trouble if it leaked (like for example a passport does). And 1 in 3 adults (according to the article) have an Apple account that’s old enough so that they will automatically be unlocked, no further documents needed. The article strongly accuses iOS of being a walled garden, but I don’t see that as a particularly strong argument after iOS being locked down for ~20 years now. And as a parent, I know that if child protection is opt-in, there’ll be a huge fight about it, because some other parents won’t activate it, which then makes the situation unfair for the kids. I’d much rather have it on by default so that all kids are treated the same.

ChrisArchitect

Age requirements for managing an Apple Account in the UK https://support.apple.com/en-gb/126788

consoleable

Why have Western countries introduced so many laws that look like China’s? The government controls more and more individuals

boysenberry

I activated ADP as soon as it was available here, and I was hoping things would work out, and friends and family who missed the opportunity would be able to use it by now as well. I’m not pleased with this move, but its implementation has me wondering. I barely keep up with anything these days so I was taken by surprise after I updated. And, probably due to the decrepitude, I was annoyed for a few days that my phone had been nerfed and I had to roll back, before trying probably the first thing any younger person locked out would. I’m curious, if there’s anyone who hasn’t verified a spare account, if they would point their phone at things? It might take a moment, and there’s no real feedback until the phone accepts your evidence. People have said it takes other people’s credit cards and ID, but I’m wondering if it’ll accept a pet passport too, or really what the limit is.

ReptileMan

The joys of locked bootloaders strike again.

guidedlight

I would rather prove my age to Apple than [insert random website]. I think that’s what Apple is banking on. They sell privacy as a feature of their products, and I’m grateful for that.

matt123456789

Apple isn't doing shit except for following the law. If you don't like the law, change it. I will edit this to say, since I'm sure people are out there who will make this point: yes, I read the article. I disagree with it. "Not required by the OS" Well that isn't going to matter much when Apple gets hit with a big fat fine for "allowing" underage users on social media.

cedws

Fuck the bureaucrats responsible for this. I’m so sick of being completely powerless to fight any of this, being forced to sit and watch. Writing to my MP changes nothing. Signing petitions does nothing. The Government doesn’t give a fuck. They’ve had so many golden opportunities to differentiate themselves from the Tories and all they’ve done is carry the torch. I will vote for any party that promises to rewind this crap, I don’t care what other policies they have. Enough of the nannying.

Fizzadar

One silver lining this is finally going to push me to switch to a dedicated camera and some niche unrestricted Linux or graphene device as a phone. Goodbye iPhone. (I say this as someone with an Apple account old enough to auto “qualify”, how lucky).

tamimio

You can blame the government as much as you like, but this is actually has to do with british nature, they have an obsessive need for control, and if you worked with some you will immediately notice how they will try to make all sort of policies and shit to control the other party, all while they pretend they are open about hearing other’s opinions. So it kinda backfired, what goes around comes around.

wewewedxfgdf

Why stop at age? Not long till complete authentication of the human at every level is required to use a computer.

devstatic

The real problem was never just checking age imo. It was deciding who deals with mistakes, who gets blamed when access is blocked wrongly, and how a normal user is supposed to fix it. Moving that to the phone makes it look cleaner, but mostly just pushes the mess into a layer people have even less control over.

snvzz

To understand the age verification push, got to follow the incentives[0]. 0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfukJ6uVHXs