Age-Verification

Linden Lab hat heimlich, still und leise die Altersverifizierung radikal vereinfacht. Erinnert ihr euch noch an die mühsamen Zeiten, als man seinen Realnamen mitsamt Geburtsdatum mit Geburtsort und Passnummer oder Führerscheinnummer eingeben musste und dann manchmal bange war, ob er die Daten überhaupt annahm? Ehrlich, das hat sich schwer geänder!

Age verification is finally going operational. First it’s going to be on a grid wide beta on the main grid, the impact of it is something to be checked out.

It’s unusual that a beta feature is going to be released on the main grid, but in that case it makes sense. I just wonder what took them over 7 months to get that feature ready; it’s something that’s going to make Second Life more corporate friendly in the future, that’s for sure.

When you take into account, which big waves the announcement from 05/04/2007 of the age verification system made and that Lindenlabs wanted to implement this on really short notice and since then it has been over one month of time and it is still not there nor any new announcements about it, it makes you wonder - when is it going to happen, finally?

I haven’t even seen a public beta test of it so far, and if you consider how fast Windlight was integrated in the client, which is a far more complex piece of technology - what is taking Lindenlabs so long? And why?

About one week ago there has been a report that aired on German television about the depiction of child pornography in Second Life. It sent out massive waves through the whole community, the Lindens even wrote an article about the whole case on their own blog.

The whole case broke down into this parts:

1. the depiction of child pornography in Second Life, meaning: an avatar in child form having sex in world with an adult avatar and
2. the exchange of real life pictures of teens and preteens in questionable poses (nude and more heavy stuff, it seems) as textures in world between some avatars.

The first case is not illegal in all countries; for example in the USA some could just say “heck, those are virtual things and just adults playing behind the whole scene, no real child has been harmed at all while doing this, and it is not illegal, either, so what’s the ruckus?” The final decision on it has to be made by a judge.

The next big thing in the community hasn’t been the upcoming voice features or the introduction of sculpted prims (which are going to have only somewhat limited use), but the introduction of age verification to the platform. I’ve also written an entry about it, too.

Now we know the company which is going to do it. Well, they had to choose one, anyway, and there are not so much companies in that field.

According to the Lindens there is coming an age verification to us in about one week. If I read the FAQ correct, it is done by a third party company and you’ve got to provide them some info, e.g. social security number, drivers license number, passport number, to verify that you are over 18 years old. If you provide the info successfully, then you’ve got the “age verified” flag and are allowed to enter parcels with “adult content” flag. If you don’t have an age verification, you still can play in Second Life, but don’t enter such regions anymore.