A Modest Proposal
According to Linden Lab:
“We plan to implement features that will enable Residents to optionally confirm aspects of each other’s identity, including age and jurisdictions.”
The way I’d prefer the identity verification system (and the current “payment info on file”) is that this data should never leave the server.
You should be able to give the servers whatever pieces of identity you wish. Age, payment status, gender, location, sexual orientation, nostril hair length, etc. should all be optional to give to this “ID server”. With some of this, a range (for age) or multiple choices (nationality?) might be appropriate.
Parcel owners should then be able to ban visitors according to one or more of these, or some combination. Alternately, they could allow only those who match a specific set of criteria. This banning would replace the current “ban by payment status” section.
As part of this, to prevent identity phishing, this data on the ID servers should never be made accessible to any scripting, and should never get sent to any client except the avatar in question.
In terms of user interface, if an avatar that matches the ban profile (or does not match the allowed profile) tries to enter a given parcel, they should come up against ban lines. the actual data on what kind of profiles get banned/allowed from a given parcel should be visible.
Thoughts?