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Censorship of internet use when accessed by unregistered 3G phone

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posted on Jan, 20 2013 @ 03:13 PM
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reply to post by grainofsand
 
I don't know about other parts of the US, but in my area you only get asked for ID if you appear to be under the age of 27 (at least that is what the TACB enforces). Your ID is not run through a scanner or anything, the sales clerk just looks at it to ascertain that you are indeed over the age of 21- at least that is as far as alcohol sales is concerned. Pretty much the same goes for buying movies or video games as well, only they check ID if you appear to be under the age of 17.

I have a pre-paid phone and nobody has ever asked my age and I can access whatever I want on it. Both of my kids have had phones since they were well under age and were never restricted in their usage either. Maybe it's just a UK thing that's going on with the web restriction on pre-paid phones. Trust me, the kids were accessing stuff they probably shouldn't have before they were of age!



posted on Jan, 20 2013 @ 03:26 PM
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Originally posted by littled16
I don't know about other parts of the US, but in my area you only get asked for ID if you appear to be under the age of 27 (at least that is what the TACB enforces). Your ID is not run through a scanner or anything, the sales clerk just looks at it to ascertain that you are indeed over the age of 21- at least that is as far as alcohol sales is concerned. Pretty much the same goes for buying movies or video games as well, only they check ID if you appear to be under the age of 17.
Ah that is interesting, sounds similar to the UK 'clearly under 25' policy, thanks for the info.


I have a pre-paid phone and nobody has ever asked my age and I can access whatever I want on it. Both of my kids have had phones since they were well under age and were never restricted in their usage either. Maybe it's just a UK thing that's going on with the web restriction on pre-paid phones. Trust me, the kids were accessing stuff they probably shouldn't have before they were of age!

Again interesting, would you mind sharing if the phone, network card, and top-ups have ever been paid by credit/debit card or only in cash? The reason I wonder is the alternative identity confirmation when using cards or bank transfer.



posted on Jan, 20 2013 @ 03:30 PM
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reply to post by grainofsand
 
All things related to phone paid for with cash in-store. Never had a problem with it. The kids have done the same since in their early teens- both are in their twenties now. Hope that answers your questions.



posted on Jan, 20 2013 @ 03:41 PM
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Originally posted by littled16
reply to post by grainofsand
 
All things related to phone paid for with cash in-store. Never had a problem with it. The kids have done the same since in their early teens- both are in their twenties now. Hope that answers your questions.


Very much so, thank you.
It would appear that your area of the US has reasonable policies regarding the sale of age restricted products and the requirement to produce ID.
I also commend the lack of censorship restrictions on unregistered 3G net access by your ISP.
Could this differ under the laws of different states perhaps?
The 'clearly over 25 policy' face to face judgement by store staff satisfies UK law.
It is a decision by the mobile ISP to demand ID, they are not obligated through legislation.



posted on Jan, 20 2013 @ 04:07 PM
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Originally posted by grainofsand

Very much so, thank you.
It would appear that your area of the US has reasonable policies regarding the sale of age restricted products and the requirement to produce ID.
I also commend the lack of censorship restrictions on unregistered 3G net access by your ISP.
Could this differ under the laws of different states perhaps?
The 'clearly over 25 policy' face to face judgement by store staff satisfies UK law.
It is a decision by the mobile ISP to demand ID, they are not obligated through legislation.


It is quite possible that it varies state to state, as well as varying according to mobile carrier. In our cases we use Verizon (well, one uses Straight Talk), and while they have at times asked for information we have always refused and they have not hassled us about it. I understand it would probably be different if we had particular phone plans, but with pre-paid I figured it was none of their business and taught the kids about not giving out personal information at a young age- and it has stuck with them.



posted on Jan, 20 2013 @ 04:44 PM
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Originally posted by littled16

Originally posted by grainofsand

Very much so, thank you.
It would appear that your area of the US has reasonable policies regarding the sale of age restricted products and the requirement to produce ID.
I also commend the lack of censorship restrictions on unregistered 3G net access by your ISP.
Could this differ under the laws of different states perhaps?
The 'clearly over 25 policy' face to face judgement by store staff satisfies UK law.
It is a decision by the mobile ISP to demand ID, they are not obligated through legislation.


It is quite possible that it varies state to state, as well as varying according to mobile carrier. In our cases we use Verizon (well, one uses Straight Talk), and while they have at times asked for information we have always refused and they have not hassled us about it. I understand it would probably be different if we had particular phone plans, but with pre-paid I figured it was none of their business and taught the kids about not giving out personal information at a young age- and it has stuck with them.
I like your outlook there and share very similar sentiments


I've done a little reading about the wider mobile internet censorship issue and it appears that the UK ISP's are among the most enthusiastic about censor first then demand ID/credit card for restrictions to be lifted, here's some relevant links for anyone interested:

Mobile internet filters block legitimate content campaign group says

Open Rights Group

All the networks have a default filtering system in place on their pay- as-you-go phones. But none of them offered satisfactory reasons why inaccurate blocks happen. The mobile operators generally assumed that because we had access to other ‘friendly’ sites (BBC / Google) that their filtering systems were working correctly. This is despite the fact that we deliberately used examples of a non-adult material related website as our test site. Perhaps the most unusual of all the explanations came from 3, whose representative seemed to be under the impression that ‘the government’ set the standard for adult content filtering. This is incorrect; each mobile network uses a third party to classify and filter websites against a framework set by an industry body.

edit on 20-1-2013 by grainofsand because: To add quote



posted on Jan, 20 2013 @ 05:21 PM
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Originally posted by grainofsand
Again, as with other age restricted products in the UK (alcohol, tobacco, printed/DVD porn, fireworks, solvents, knives) no ID is required if the store worker at the point of sale can see the customer is 'clearly over 25'


Sadly, that is incorrect, and is becoming worse.

I have been asked for ID on a number of occasions for alcohol and tobacco at stores such as Tescos, Morrisons (probably the worst for it), co-op, Asda etc etc.

I'm 32, I usually have some form of thick facial hair, I have a receding (not that bad just yet) hairline.

It's bloody annoying, especially when I don't have ID on me.

In fact, you often see stories in the news paper about elderly folk getting asked for ID for alcohol and such like, it's laughable. Here is a few examples.....

Shop refuses to sell great-grandmother, 92, alcohol without ID

Supermarket asks man, 87, for ID

Off-licence staff asked two PENSIONERS for proof they were over 18

There are quite a few stories like that, ranging from major supermarkets to corner shops.



posted on Jan, 20 2013 @ 06:19 PM
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reply to post by woogleuk
 
I'd heard similar stories but just dismissed them as isolated cases, not having that experience myself since early 20's. It is interesting that business is 'policing' things where there is obviously no need, and no legal requirement for them to do so.
My exact name and date of birth are details which are not necessary for a purveyor of alcohol to easily establish that I am over 18. I can imagine the potential inconvenience but would refuse the request and choose another store/option. Likewise any pub/bar/club.
Dramatic perhaps, but my resistance to be forced to supply personal information is quite strong generally, especially when there is quite obviously no need for its use as verification.


edit on 20-1-2013 by grainofsand because: Typo



posted on Jan, 20 2013 @ 09:23 PM
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I'm surprised you can purchase a pre-paid handset and activate a phone number without ID in the UK.

Here in Australia, they make no bones about it - the reason we need to provide identification when setting up a prepaid 3G account for our iPad or Nexus tablet or phone or whatever is simply to ensure that if we are "terrorists" the security forces can track and trace us as easily as possible. I believe it's all based on an Australian commonwealth telecommunications act.

With the UK's surveillance state mentality it is very surprising to me that they are happy to provide anonymous telecommunications services. Perhaps they figure that they don't need your name and date of birth if they have your IMEI and can triangulate a position fix on your device within a few seconds for any given call/transmission on the network.



posted on Jan, 21 2013 @ 10:31 AM
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Originally posted by nottelling
I'm surprised you can purchase a pre-paid handset and activate a phone number without ID in the UK.
Here in Australia, they make no bones about it - the reason we need to provide identification when setting up a prepaid 3G account for our iPad or Nexus tablet or phone or whatever is simply to ensure that if we are "terrorists" the security forces can track and trace us as easily as possible. I believe it's all based on an Australian commonwealth telecommunications act.
I admit that I'm the one now surprised that Australian 'authorities' are more restrictive with the registration of mobile phones than the UK.


With the UK's surveillance state mentality it is very surprising to me that they are happy to provide anonymous telecommunications services. Perhaps they figure that they don't need your name and date of birth if they have your IMEI and can triangulate a position fix on your device within a few seconds for any given call/transmission on the network.
This is my issue with the UK mobile ISP's coercing phone users to register details before lifting their blanket censorship. They are not required to do this under legislation and there is no need from a 'crime' perspective due to the security forces ability to trace the handset location if they wanted to.
There are other methods the 'authorities' could employ such as checking CCTV in any one of the 'Paypoint' stores I use to purchase the data package every month, all digital and time recorded.

We can see then that this insistence for photo ID showing full name, address, date of birth, place of birth, driver number, driving convictions, passport number and list of countries visited, is solely driven by the corporate mobile industry, not government.
The staff in the relevant stores are not legally prevented from making a decision that a customer is 'over 18' when face to face with someone who is 'clearly and obviously' over legal age.
The demand for ID is an unnecessary 'verification' policy created by the mobile industry.

When I take this all into account, I can only come back to my earlier conclusion that the mobile companies reasons are inspired by the value of gathering personal data for marketing or advertising, not the 'protection of children' or the 'prevention of crime'.

Either way, since starting this thread I've been using some VPN software as suggested by another poster, and now have full access to the internet with the ISP still having no idea who I am.
Accessing porn has not been my intention in any of this though, the ISP's have no clear guidelines regarding what they restrict, and this is a sample of some inappropriate (non-adult content) blocks from OpenRightsGroup



La Quadrature du Net (www.laquadrature.net/en). The website of this French ‘digital rights’ advocacy group was reported blocked on Orange’s ‘Safeguard’ system on 2nd February. La Quadrature du Net has become one of the focal points for European civil society’s political engagement with an important international treaty called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

Septicisle.info was reported on 7th February, and was blocked on Vodafone, Orange, and T-Mobile. This is a personal blog featuring political opinion pieces. It does not contain any adult content.

The Vault Bar (www.thevaultbar.co.uk) in London. We established that the home page of this bar was blocked on Vodafone, Orange, and T-Mobile on 6th February.

St Margarets Community Website (www.stmgrts.org. uk), is a community information site ‘created by a group of local residents of St Margarets, Middlesex.’ Their ‘mission is simple - help foster a stronger community identity.’ We established it was blocked on Orange and T-Mobile on 8th March.

eHow.com is an advice and educational site. It provides tutorials on a wide range of everyday issues, from ‘navigating after- school care’ to ‘small space garden tips’.

Biased-BBC (www.biased-bbc.blogspot.co.uk) is a site that challenges the BBC’s impartiality. We established it was blocked on O2 and T-Mobile on 5th March. It is classified as a ‘hate site’ by O2’s URL checker

Yomaraugusto.com is the home page of a graphic designer, offering a portfolio of his art and design work.


I am finding it very interesting to read about the situations in other countries, so please feel free to contribute your own experiences here relating to registering pre-pay phones, or indeed the wider issue of censorship and unnecessary demands for personal information by corporate business.
My concern is that we are sleepwalking into a society where private citizens take it as normal to freely supply their personal information to any arbitrary requests by big business.
Any opinions about this are more than welcome.




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