Ok, here it is. Official blog post by Robin Linden is nice, polite and sounds reasonable. More than we expected. In short:
- You can verify your name, age, sex and/or location.
- You are not obliged to.
- It is done via third party called Aristotle Integrity.
- Land owners are strongly encouraged to flag their parcels as restricted if they contain non-PG content.
- It's been expected that community will take care about land-owners who "forgot" to flag their restricted content.
What remains unclear is…
Are data kept after verification or not? From the official blog post:
Information provided during the identification process, such as a driver’s license, passport or national ID card number, will simply be used to cross-check against public records. Linden Lab will not be storing this data and nor will the third party verification specialist, Aristotle.
And then, just few paragraphs later:
Linden Lab does not share Resident data for marketing or other purposes, but does of course comply with requests from all governmental and regulatory authorities and with court orders including subpoenas.
Wait! What will they share with authorities if they store nothing? Though I am not against handling criminals to the police, this two quotes hardly go together.
What content is restricted?
We trust that common sense will prevail. As a general rule, “Restricted Content” is any content that is explicitly sexual or excessively violent in nature.
I would also be happy to trust in prevalence of common sense, but as we saw recently, it is hard to believe this is going to work. Simply, world is too big and many different viewpoints coexist there. On one hand, that is beautiful and makes second life very interesting, vibrant and rich community. Beside that, residents are adults who should be responsible for the world they are developing. On the other, can we trust into existence of common sense in such environment? Will we all behave like tolerant adults and avoid participation in witch hunts?
Except these few things everything seems fine. Verification is not mandatory so one can stay (partly) anonymous if wish so, or can have a layer of security for business purposes. I don't believe that adult things that stay fairly private will be hunted for. Once again, second life is a big and diverse community and there shall the room for different lifestyles, and different approaches to the metaverse.
But as Robin nicely opened her introduction of Identity Verification (IDV):
Trust is the foundation of any community.
Problem is, how to trust Linden Lab they will handle that precious data with care and respect with all those inventories disappearing? And how to trust them with all the uncleanness we read every time something like this is happening?
According to poll at Metaversed,majority of residents will verify their identity (84% at this moment, but it is still small number of votes). What about you? Will you, or not, or you are damn pissed because of it? Why?
this kind of pisses me off really, i dont see why we should have to verify ourselves. it just seems to open the door to griefers and other people with bad intentions. i know i wont be verifying, not because i have anything to hide but because i dont trust linden lab or the community.
Linden Lab needs to change their quote from “you’re world, you’re imagination” to “you’re world, you’re imagination, until we put the lock down on it.”
We don’t have to verify ourselves. I won’t. Moment it becomes mandatory, I am off….
Never mind that in some countries it’s actually illegal to give social security/passport/driving licence numbers to anyone, and in countries where it isn’t illegal, well it bloodywell should be. Any one of these three items can be used by criminals for the purposes of identity theft and fraud, which ironically is what they’re trying to prevent.
The article says that the verification would be a simple online procedure, residents just type in the number and bingo. Done. What happens next? That data packet containing my passport number goes on around 30 or so “hops” from one internet server to another, between here and Lindenlabs (or other company I’ve never heard of before today). Any one of those stages is vulnerable to hacking, interception, screen-scraping, or just an unscrupulous employee at some random internet provider looking at a screen. If the worst does happen and my identity is stolen, I’ve also effectively given away any possible recourse for compensation, simply by being stupid enough to give my passport/social security details online. No lawyer in the land would be able to defend me.
Um. No thanks.
So what does this mean for me? Well. Given that residents with “adult sites” will be expected to ban non-verified residents, I guess that means I won’t be able to go in any sex clubs, bdsm dungeons etc. Hmm. Not like I ever go in places like that anyway. No biggie, if I’m banned from places I never visit anyway. If the scheme is extended, though, I will really have no choice but to quit SL altogether.
Someone suggested that it’s no different from giving your credit card number to make a purchase online, but it’s not. If I make a purchase online, and my credit card number is hacked and stolen, and someone uses it to make fraudulent purchases, I can cancel my credit card and get my money back.
If I give my social security number and someone hacks that, they get ALL my personal details. If they use that to commit fraud under my identity, I can’t get my social security number changed. If that person commits a crime using my personal details, it could well be me that gets arrested for it.
To me, the verify idea is simply a way to cover LL legal asses, and I think the effect on the grid will not be too dramatical…
… but yes, I don’t like it anyway. My liberty to access anywhere will be limited, and I am sure there will be thousands of witch hunts (that’s good, at least, LL could manage hundreds, but not thousands, they will probably ignore them as they did with the griefing).
As far as I am premium account, I think they already have all the infos they need about me (i.e. my CC number…). So why should I take this other step?
I’ll do it. There’s no choice really. I don’t have to *like* it.
It’s the cost of inhabiting this otherwise remarkable world.
Seraphine: yeah. And as with any cost, there is inflation :-)
I didn’t know Sera is running interesting business. :p
Before I would even consider, I would like to see a ‘use of your personal data and privacy’ disclaimer from Aristotle themselves. And I don’t think this It’s been expected that community will take care about land-owners who “forgot” to flag their restricted content will work. Although, if you look at the amount of zealots we’ve gotten recently. *shivers*
Actually, I do think that community is before the Lindens to decide what is ok and what is not ok. But that doesn’t mean giving the power to the zealots. That means, we can use some common sense to decide about warnings at landing points of each sim: “This sim contains sex/violence/nipples/whatever. At this sim it is allowed to cage/ molest/ force play…. If you have exploited Linden’s flaws (i.e. if you are under 18) or in the country and/or the community where such activity is prohibited, or you are offended by mentioned content, please teleport to nearest infohub or your home location. Thank you. ” Nice, polite and simple.
So they are going to do this for *all* avs, including the premium ones ? pfff.
Aren’t we supposed to be on main grid only if we are over 18 ?
if trust is the foundation of sl then why wont LL trust us to be 18 or above? I trust whoever i am with to be of legal age ,and if they are not then thats there fault because by signing up for sl they have already told the world that they are 18 or above. if someone lies when they sign on thats there fault , don’t make me give up my right to anonymity to sop there lying .