Techdirt:

I wrote about the companies and organizations most likely to benefit from California's AB 2273, the "Age Appropriate Design Code" bill that the California legislature seems eager to pass (and which they refer to as the "Kid's Code" even though the details show it will impact everyone, and not just kids). The bill seemed to be getting very little attention, but after a few of my posts started to go viral, the backers of the bill ramped up their smear campaigns and lies -- including telling me that I'm not covered by it (and when I dug in and pointed out how I am... they stopped responding). But, even if somehow Techdirt is not covered (which, frankly, would be a relief), I can still be quite concerned about how it will impact everyone else.

But, the craziest of all things is that the "Age Verification Providers Association" decided to show up in the comments to defend themselves and insist that their members can do age verification in a privacy-protective manner. You just have to let them scan your face with facial recognition technology.

Really. [...]

But, more to the point, they're basically saying "don't worry, you'll just need to scan your face or ID for every website your visit." Normalizing facial scans does not seem particularly privacy protecting or reasonable. It seems pretty dystopian, frankly.

We've already just gone through this nonsense earlier this year when the IRS was demanding facial scans, and it later came out that -- contrary to claims about privacy and the high quality of the facial verification technology -- the technology was incredibly unreliable and the vendor in question's public claims about the privacy tools were bogus. [...]

This morning, they're in the comments again, trying (and failing) to defend this argument that it's nothing to worry about. When people point out that such a system can be gamed, they have an answer... "we'll just make you take a video of yourself saying phrases, too." I mean WHAT?

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.