Do not implement face-scan age verification
Face-scan age verification is a thin veneer for more totalitarian governments of the world to control and censor media. This is every bit about protecting users as it is protecting Twitch, for two very important reasons.
First and foremost, other companies that have implemented face-scan age verification have suffered devastating data leaks that resulted in the pictures of those who consented to the face scanning ending up in the hands of parties to whom those that let their face get scanned were not given consent. Many of those same companies also had other sensitive information, such as home addresses and credit card information, leaked, and should something like this happen to Twitch, the damage to the site's reputation would be devastating.
Secondly, showing a willingness to acquiesce to a totalitarian government's censorship policies is a slippery slope wherein the government can decide what kinds of content are acceptable, which would lead to those governments banning certain games - or worse still, certain creators and streamers who may be sharing content or opinions that run contrary to that government's interests - from being allowed to stream. This, too, would cause irreparable harm to Twitch's reputation.
StargazerKG
shared this idea
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Serbaayuu
commented
Friend of mine tried to watch my stream the other day, and couldn't log in to chat with me because Twitch expected them to scan their face.
This should be considered a bug with the website and treated as such. I sent a bug report to Twitch Support and they only told me to come to this site.
Btw: this also requires anybody who is using the site and gets pulled into facial ID to own a camera. I do not own a webcam or a smartphone. It would be literally impossible for me to use the site if I was made to scan my face to log in. The day that happens, I can never use my account ever again.
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thevampirefishqueen
commented
@lulztime Google also allows you to do a Email check aswell, Twitch should either outright block the UK or add a lot more options to verify.
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arynbun
commented
Discord had a huge data leak due to this, Twitch had its own breaches in the past, wouldn't be surprised to see it happen with doxxable information. I'm not UK-based, but a good part of my audience is and this is not something I want them to have to deal with.
At worst, just do the credit card verification like other sites give the option of. You do not need people's faces.
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DrizzlingRose
commented
Giving a face scan to anyone is shady at best and bad costumer experience, a simple date of birth drop down menu is plenty enough, it worked for decades just fine. :)
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lulztime
commented
Mfw Google gave me the option to just verify my credit card info, so Twitch should follow suit.
Unless the face scanning ******** is mandated by the UK gov itself, which, given their recent track record, wouldn't be surprising.
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MitchTheRaccoon
commented
These age verification services have a proven track record of keeping personal information beyond the supposed legal requirement, and leaking them, as we fond out from the severe data leak from Discord's age verification service where people's personal information they had uploaded specifically for verification was stolen. Forcing users to use proven unsafe services is utterly unacceptable on Twitch's part.
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CathalMeas
commented
My account is 14 years old. How old does Twitch think I was when I made it.