Age verified field/mechanism/service

[paulaerison]

I don't need this, but I could see that somone might.

The ability to have an age verified field flag for rated contet (eg; pg, r, NC17, MA, 18+).

The ability to use an outside service with integration.

The "REQUIREMENT" to NOT allow children under 13 and under 18 to join as there ARE data privacy laws regarding minors.
I forget the name of the form parents are supposed to fill out, every state has one.

mod 1) Field flag, 90 minutes (includes adding field to DB for albums/categories and code to check cookie for it's presence)
mod 2) backlink to age verified service. Got me on that one... could be 90 minutes, could be 90 days.

[Joachim Müller]

I can see the point of this request, however I'm not sure about the implementation. Maybe a resident of the country/state where such laws apply will consider to look into such a mod (*hint* ).

Joachim

[paulaerison]

The laws vary from state to state. The operator would be required to ensure compliance (except with the "age verified" service) in his/her state. The flag could be kindof simmilar to the "awaiting approval" for new pic uploads and would have a "awaiting age verification" tab/button on the admin page.

The easisest implementation would be first a "global" "require age verification" flage wich would enable/disable the feature.
The "zeroth" part would be requiring DOB as part of registration
The second part would be a bool in the user record for age_verified
The third part would be the awaiting...
the fourth part would be a list of users with check boxes and a search by name
last, but not least, form based batch verify (eg; you know user x, xx, xxy, yy but not z, zz, zy, and zx have colmplied) and place a check in thier box and hit submit.

album/category based bol check age_ver_req against age_verified eg;

Code Select Expand


if (age_ver_req[cat] && age_ver_req[albm] && age_verified[uid])
   {print "Access restricted due to age"; go_print_age_restrict_policy;}
else
   {go_print_cat/albm;}
;


obviously it's just psuedocode but you get the idea... If i had about half a day, I'd code it.

[Hein Traag]

I think if this idea is pursued furter then you should be build it as widely as possible to able to use it in a variety of fields or at least make it easy to be modified.

For example i'm setting up a picture gallery idea for the national scouting headquarters here in the Netherlands.
They have this one request and that is to have it age verified.
The why is real simple. To keep for example cub scouts (young members) out of the albums of the rovers (elder members).
So they won't get to see pictures that are not yet suitable for their young eyes *grin*, scouts do know how to party 

I can see the added value in a feature of this kind but i doubt many will actually use it. It's to easy to get your older brother to login
so you can see all pics.

[paulaerison]

I can see the added value in a feature of this kind but i doubt many will actually use it. It's to easy to get your older brother to login
so you can see all pics.

and herin lies the crux of the issue. Our responsibility as website operatorors is to ensure compliance and protection of minors. Our role is NOT that of enforcers. It's simply not possible to know who is at the other end of the mouse. If we try as hard as we can to comply and to ensure that the person is of the required age, then it become the responsibility of the parent/guardian to police the actions of thier children. (Which, really, it's thiers to begin with, some jack*## of a senator got a bug up his but and decided that taking information from kids is how sex predators get thier victims.)

[kegobeer]

The "REQUIREMENT" to NOT allow children under 13 and under 18 to join as there ARE data privacy laws regarding minors.
I forget the name of the form parents are supposed to fill out, every state has one.

The laws vary from state to state.

Information for adults:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/kidzprivacy/adults.htm

Information for kids:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/kidzprivacy/kidz.htm

Information for webmasters:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/kidzprivacy/biz.htm

Our development team isn't exclusively American, it's a very diverse international group of people.  If we tried to appease every nation's rules regarding how information should be monitored, we'd spend all of our time figuring out how to prevent people from seeing pictures instead of improving our gallery software.  I don't know what Idaho's laws are regarding the internet any more than I know what Israel's laws are regarding the internet.  The person ultimately responsible to ensure his or her site complies with the various laws of their locale is the webmaster.  And there are fantastic tools already available to a webmaster to help them comply, such as the many age verification systems, all of which can and will do a much better job than Coppermine ever could.

Coppermine comes with a default statement that every person must agree to before joining, which can be edited by the administrator at any time.  If you want to add a statement that requires the age of a member to be over 13, feel free to add it.

I've seen a few gallery applications, numerous forum apps, and countless other apps for websites, none of which employ any sort of age verification system.  Age verification systems, if used, are services provided by third-party sites.

So, in my opinion there's no point re-inventing the wheel.  Use an age verification service if you want to do everything in your power to keep minors from viewing your website.

[paulaerison]

Our development team isn't exclusively American, it's a very diverse international group of people. If we tried to appease every nation's rules regarding how information should be monitored, we'd spend all of our time figuring out how to prevent people from seeing pictures instead of improving our gallery software. I don't know what Idaho's laws are regarding the internet any more than I know what Israel's laws are regarding the internet. The person ultimately responsible to ensure his or her site complies with the various laws of their locale is the webmaster. And there are fantastic tools already available to a webmaster to help them comply, such as the many age verification systems, all of which can and will do a much better job than Coppermine ever could.

agreed, that is why I suggested hooks into coppermine to support 3rd party systems and an option in the control panel to turn the entire thing on or off.

Coppermine comes with a default statement that every person must agree to before joining, which can be edited by the administrator at any time. If you want to add a statement that requires the age of a member to be over 13, feel free to add it.

that might fly somewhere, but in the US, COPPA requires a much more stringent approach. :-\\

So, in my opinion there's no point re-inventing the wheel. Use an age verification service if you want to do everything in your power to keep minors from viewing your website.

once again, I completely agree... but the hooks still need to be there for 3rd party systems to use. Sites that have mixed content should not have to ....     operate in fear of COPPA or have an all or nothing approach but be able to use an al-a-carte approach to content viewing.

I'm only suggesting a fairly simple (phase 1) system of webmaster validated age verification and checks for flags in the topic/content display. Phase two would provide hook mechanisms for either 1x verification via 3rd party callback url, or continiuos checks such as that provided by sexykey.com.... The first and second are a bit easier to implement, the thrid becomes problematic in that there is simply no standard between all the providers and may also require some fiduciary compensation on the part of the webmaster.

if I had the time, i'd write it myself.   But, I don't have 2-3 days (I have started, but at this rate, it will take me more like 2-3 weeks, if I even get it done at all.)

the reason it'd take 2-3 days is because the mod i'm writing has an installer which CHECKS the database for the presence of the required field(s), makes the nescicary alter_table() requests, and makes copies the affected files with the changes that will be required. (hopefully few as I think all of the functions are fairly centrally located and will therefore be fairly easy to check/change)

[Hein Traag]

Since you already started building something it might be a idea to share what you have already. Might just be people on the board who would like a view at the code and help you alonh your way.

[paulaerison]

so far the only thing i've had time for is the the sql select statement and the alter_table statement. Not worth the time to post or read...  :-\\