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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age restrictions to digital coins when they are withdrawn.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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