Mozilla Automation TeamSvea Windwehr10 min readintermediate
Pragmatic principles for more rights-respecting age assurance architectures
Summary
The article proposes a rights‑respecting approach to age‑assurance, assigning actuation to services, using devices for privacy‑preserving signal creation, offering user choice of providers, and leveraging zero‑knowledge credentials. It argues that policy must enforce open standards and end‑to‑end risk assessment to avoid privacy, security, and competition harms.
- Assign actuation of age signals to the website/app that knows the content, while devices create and share the signal privately.
- Give users a choice of multiple privacy‑preserving age providers and let them control when a credential is shared.
- Use zero‑knowledge or anonymous credential techniques to prove age without exposing personal data.
- Mandate open, free standards and protect open‑source OSes to prevent power concentration in major app stores.
Policymakers, platform engineers, and privacy advocates need concrete guidance to build age‑verification systems that meet regulations without sacrificing user rights.
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