[taler-marketing] branch master updated: age verification notes

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grothoff pushed a commit to branch master
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The following commit(s) were added to refs/heads/master by this push:
     new 8ca905c  age verification notes
8ca905c is described below

commit 8ca905c3a25f5f5996bb1fa4a5d2fcd6e646b997
Author: Christian Grothoff <christian@grothoff.org>
AuthorDate: Tue May 4 18:22:35 2021 +0200

    age verification notes
---
 ecb/age.txt | 94 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 94 insertions(+)

diff --git a/ecb/age.txt b/ecb/age.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b32c85f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ecb/age.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,94 @@
+                 Age-Restrictions for Taler
+
+Age-restrictions are part of the agenda of Taler Systems SA to make
+digital cash more programmable. We propose to extend Taler with an
+innovative age verification tied into the payment process. For this,
+the GNU Taler protocol is to be extended with a mechanism that adds
+age restrictions to digital coins when they are withdrawn.  This will
+then allow merchants to perform age verification while preserving the
+anonymity of the buyer, providing an alternative to contemporary
+identity-based age verfication while also streamlining the checkout
+process by integrating payment with age verification.
+
+Existing solutions
+==================
+
+Contemporary solutions to the problem are primarily special special
+debit or credit cards for teenagers.  Major players on the US market
+are Greenlight (www.greenlightcard.com), Step (step.com) and Current
+(current.com).  The provider Greenlight, for example offers credit
+cards for children and allows parents a fine-grained selection of
+businesses that they can be released for payment with the card --- but
+not on individual products.  One App allows children to manage income
+``that they receive from doing household chores'', and set savings
+goals. Classic credit card companies like American Express, Visa and
+Mastercard issue additional cards to the credit card of the
+responsible owner, which young people from 14 years of age can use.
+All of these procedures require children to be registered and use
+traceable ones Identities (credit card numbers etc.) and therefore
+cannot protect the anonymity and privacy of children.  Furthermore,
+the use of credit cards in particular creates the financial risk of
+children going into debt.  Also, none of these systems offer an easy
+way for merchants to set age restrictions to be attached to individual
+products.
+
+
+Properties of the envisioned solution
+=====================================
+
+The introduction of an anonymous age verification coupled to payments
+as envisioned by Taler Systems SA is thus new. The planned procedure
+will have the following properties:
+
+1. The age information remains privately under the control of the
+   account holder who authorized the withdrawl of the age-restricted coins.
+2. The protection of children's privacy is guaranteed when buying:
+   A zero-knowledge proof with the age check during the purchase process
+   only confirms the required minimum age to the seller.
+3. When change is issued, the age limit is carried over to the coins returned
+   as changed.
+4. The labeling and verification of age restrictions of individual products
+   is possible.
+5. The introduction of an age check does not lead to compromises in terms
+   of data protection.
+6. The age verification as part of the payment process simplifies the work
+   for merchants and enables an efficient implementation in terms of
+   bandwidth, storage space and computing time.
+
+
+Political relevance
+===================
+
+According to Eurostat, around ten percent of the European population
+in 2020 were children between the ages of 10 and 18 years. It is of
+general social interest to enable them economic participation and
+allow them to learn how to manage their finances. Existing payment
+systems for children, in particular those based on credit cards, keep
+getting into trouble due to unauthorized purchases by children.  For
+example, Apple was approved by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in
+2014 United States required to pay at least $ 32.5 million in
+compensation to parents for failing authorized purchases by their
+children. This is one of many examples illustrating the in financial
+damage done by credit cards to families. In 2012, the United States
+introduced new rules for protection Children's Privacy on the Internet
+(COPPA), exposting the lack of protection of children's privacy
+in the current technical state of the Internet and its services.
+
+
+Conclusion
+==========
+
+The envisioned extension of GNU TALER will allow parents to give their
+children pocket money with age restrictions as determined by the legal
+guardian.  Parents will have the certainty that the children are only
+able to buy goods and services that meet the age restriction, and
+merchants will be able to easily specify and enforce the age
+restrictions without additional cost to the merchant, avoiding the
+need for expensive registration processes and the risks of storing
+sensitive personal data of their customers.
+
+
+Contact
+=======
+
+grothoff@taler-systems.com

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