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Ah that is interesting, sounds similar to the UK 'clearly under 25' policy, thanks for the info.
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.
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!
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.
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.
I like your outlook there and share very similar sentiments
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.
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.
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'
I admit that I'm the one now surprised that Australian 'authorities' are more restrictive with the registration of mobile phones than the UK.
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.
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.
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.
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.