In Venice, we must begin to discuss this.

I don't like that AI services are becoming permissioned and are not remaining permissionless like Bitcoin, but that's the way it's going.

Reasons

New Age Verification Laws for Chatbots in the United States

A bill called the "Guidelines for User Age-verification and Responsible Dialogue Act of 2025" is already being proposed that would require AI services to request age verification in the United States; in the references, I have included the first article[^1] and the second[^2].

The case of Australia

In Australia, they want to prevent minors from accessing AI characters[^3]. Before the laws were passed, the Character AI service put measures in place to identify whether users are of legal age [^4].

Character AI now uses the 'Persona' verification service to allow users to upload their documents and/or identification credentials; if verification fails, the user will be asked for facial recognition.

Data leaks

I don't like uploading identification documents to dozens of verification sites, and I like facial recognition even less. remember what happened with Discord and its security breach[^5] where more than 70,000 photos of government IDs were leaked, as well as the case of 'Tea App' where more than 13,000 selfies were leaked[^6], selfies that according to Tea App "were deleted when they were no longer needed", which turned out to be a lie.

Why Age Verification in Venice?

Venice offers the option to chat with characters, image-generating AIs, and videos with low censorship.

Remember that Venice is a service that gives high priority to privacy, which is why we need Zero Knowledge Proof + Self-sovereign identity (SSI).

Zero Knowledge Proof (ZKP)

• Single issuer: Users only need to identify themselves to a single issuer of identifiers and can use that cryptographic identifier to verify themselves on other services. This significantly reduces the risk of data leaks.

• Only the necessary information: A service (let's say Venice) using a cryptographic proof will only know what it needs to know, that the user is of legal age (without having to provide a date of birth), and nothing else, no full name, address, etc.

• Not traceable: It is not traceable by the ID issuer. This significantly increases user privacy.

• More about ZKP: In the references below, I have included a link to the first video[^7], second video[^8], and a Wikipedia article[^9].

Self-sovereign identity (SSI)

• Control: Gives individuals complete control over their credentials and allows them to decide when and with whom they are shared.

• Self-custody: Credentials are held by the user (digital wallet, private keys, etc.).

• Decentralization: SSI is based on decentralized models (blockchain, DIDs, etc.) where there is no single point of authority.

• Mechanisms: SSI includes user-controlled revocation, expiration, and update mechanisms.

• More about SSI: In the references below, I have included a link to the first video [^10] and an article [^11].

Preferences for ZKP + SSI

Open Source: The tools to be used should be open source.

Independence from restrictive systems: The tools should not depend on restrictions such as Google Play Integrity or similar, so that they can also be used on operating systems and tools that respect privacy, such as:

• Browser extensions (Brave, Firefox, and in the future Ladybird)

• Android smartphones without Google Play Services (de-Googled phones)

• Desktop operating systems such as GNU/Linux, etc.

• In the future, smartphones with GNU/Linux OS

• Specialized hardware (such as Ledger and Concordium)[^12]

Implementation

• Request age verification only in countries where it is required by law.

Some options I have researched

• Concordium

• The app is open source and can be downloaded from GitHub without going through the Google Play Store

• It has open source AppImage and .deb package for GNU/Linux

• ION - Layer 2 for the Bitcoin blockchain

• Chainlink

• Aztec Network

• Private ID (formerly Polygon ID

• Cheqd

• Cheqd Web5

• Ethereum Attestation Service

Extras

Venice Audit

Although Venice provides more confidence in terms of privacy than other services such as OpenAI, there is still no audit.

Eventually, when age verification becomes mandatory, it would not be ideal to continue with just "Trust me bro".

It would be good for an auditor to check at least these two things about Venice:

• The AIs are not trained with user prompts.

• There are Zero Logs of user prompts.

Acknowledgments Venice

I would like to thank Venice for removing Google Fonts from the Chat page. Google uses Google Fonts to track users.

References

[^1]: [Article: Lawmakers Want Proof of ID Before You Talk to AI](https://reclaimthenet.org/lawmakers-want-proof-of-id-before-you-talk-to-ai)

[^2]: [Article: Senators announce bill that would ban AI chatbot companions for minors](https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/ai-ban-kids-minors-chatgpt-characters-congress-senate-rcna240178)

[^3]: [Article: Australia's eSafety Chief Pressures Big Tech and AI Firms on Verification, Age Checks](https://reclaimthenet.org/australia-online-speech-crackdown-esafety-age-verification-push)

[^4]: [Article: Character AI is ending its chatbot experience for kids](https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/29/character-ai-is-killing-the-chatbot-experience-for-minors/)

[^5]: [Article: Discord says the identifying data of 70,000 users may have been leaked in a security breach](https://www.theverge.com/news/797051/discord-government-ids-leaked-data-breach)

[^6]: [Article: Hackers leak 13,000 photos and user IDs from Tea app, designed as a safe space for women](https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/tea-app-hacked-13000-photos-leaked-4chan-call-action-rcna221139)

[^7]: [YouTube video (07:18 minutes): Zero-knowledge proof: the only secure way to verify age (why no one talks about it)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIoj9oMXE_0)

[^8]: [YouTube video (22:35 minutes): A computer scientist explains a concept in 5 levels of difficulty | WIRED](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOGdb1CTu5c)

[^9]: [Wikipedia: Zero-knowledge proof](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof)

[^10]: [YouTube video (02:57 minutes): Explanation of self-sovereign identity (SSI)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJAapPG_jBY)

[^11]: [Article: Self-Sovereign Digital Identity](https://www.concordium.com/article/self-sovereign-digital-identity)

[^12]: [Article: Ledger and Concordium bring age-verified payments to millions of people](https://www.concordium.com/article/ledger-and-concordium-bring-age-verified-payments-to-millions)

[Concordium: A New Dawn in Digital Identity](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/concordium-new-dawn-digital-identity-david-mygind)

[Self-sovereign identity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-sovereign_identity)