Famously children can only access internet from wifi paid for by their parents.

I'm not for these draconian age verification nonsense, but this isn't a valid argument.

It is a valid alternative avenue towards a legal implementation of "child safeguarding" IMO. Someone pays for the internet, that person is responsible for what minors do on their connection. If they have trouble doing that we can use normal societal mechanisms like idk social services, education, and government messaging.

This is the way it works with e.g. alcohol and cigarettes, most places. Famously kids can just get a beer from a random fridge and chug it, but someone 16/18/21+ will be responsible and everyone seems mostly fine with this.

If protecting children were the actual intended outcome, this would have been the logical way to do it. Since it isn't what they're actually doing, instead using personally identifiable information to establish your age, we can only assume it's an attempt to deanonymize the internet.

This will never work.

I regularly talk to other parents at the school gates who have no idea that permissions on mobiles even exist, let alone that they can choose what they let each app have access to.

The general public people just dont care.

Yes, it's hard work to build a society where people behave responsibly and in their best interests. But I'd prefer we actually put in the effort rather than go for the easy authoritarian option out of basically laziness and contempt for your fellow man.

(fwiw I regularly talk to parents who are quite aware of various parental controls and use them effectively, combined with talking to their kids and just general good parenting practices)

This is the answer. If you provide internet access to someone, you're responsible for it. It's a generally established law from a Torrenting PoV, so isn't it equally applicable to downloading content unsuitable for children. Sure it'll destroy offering free wifi, but that always was tricky from a legal PoV around responsibilities.

Ideally the law would require websites (and apps) to provide some signed age requirement token to the client (plus possibly classification) instead of the reverse. Similarly OS and web clients should be required to provide locked down modes where the maxium age and/or classification could be selected. As a parent I would the be able to setup my child device however I wish without loss of privacy.

Is it bypassable by a sufficiently determined child? Yes, but so it is the current age verification nonsense.

> if you are paying for internet access you have to be over 18, no?

No, that's not the case.

every contract by every ISP i have ever signed has required me to be over the age of 18 to enter the contract.

In many countries, it's possible to get a prepaid SIM with data access - without any ID or age requirement whatsoever.

ah, fair, but with an easy enough fix. make data-enabled SIM cards be 18+ (or whatever age). show ID to the store clerk at purchase time, just like if you were buying smokes/alcohol.

And then how does public wifi work? Stand outside a Weatherspoons, or just walk down a highstreet with free internet, back to square one

seems dead simple to me: if you host public wifi, you are responsible for the people that use it. easy!

just like you already are responsible for what happens on your free public network (torrenting, hacking, CSAM, etc.) in most jurisdictions

(for what its worth, i think age verification is dumb. but it looks like we're getting it one way or the other)

unless your kid never goes to public school that isn't true

or goes outside at all. free wifi is everywhere

Free wifi generally is everywhere, however it is often heavily filtered and firewalled to stop being doing things the internet owner wouldnt approve of.