David Snead, director of the Secure Hosting Alliance and a long-time Internet policy leader, shares his perspective on the complexities that emerge when technological solutions like age verification are implemented in the digital infrastructure space.
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Dave’s reflection highlights how the push for more secure, regulated environments can unintentionally create barriers for vulnerable or less tech-savvy members of our society. This quote offers a unique glimpse into the real-world impact of emerging regulatory tech on everyday people.
“I think that there are multiple ways of determining age from a technological standpoint. The argument that I’m making is that they’re exclusionary. So they exclude members of the community who might actually need access to the services. You’re talking about a technological solution that, in the back of my mind when you’re describing it and I’m trying to process it myself and I have a grasp of how it works, I think, how is my 88-year-old dad going to— how is he ticket to a concert from a scalper because he couldn’t figure out how to get to his local theater. How’s he going to handle that?
And I get that it’s very easy to poke holes in some of these things just by identifying, like I just did, a good analogy. But I do see, you know, the initial question was what technological issues are going to impact hosts. I see this as something that’s going to be a problem for them. Australia already has a law like this. How are hosts in Australia responding to it?”
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