Do booze shops in the US store peoples id's after they've flashed them (pun intended)?

In some states stores are required to scan IDs. I'd be surprised if e.g. Kroger weren't storing that information. All of these porn laws I've read at least ban any storage. As far as I know digital ID standards are also at least designed to allow only sharing "over18" without other identifying information.

Kroger is most definitely storing this information. I rarely shop any Kroger store, but when they started doing IDs scans, I shop there less and no longer buy anything that requires my ID.

Similarly, Wal-Mart seems to know who I am based on my card transactions. When I swipe my card they ask if I would like a paper or an SMS receipt. I’m still not sure how they got that number association.

And if I provide it how do they prove they aren't storing it other than their word, which is untrustable for many reasons?

You don't actually provide it to the porn site. Everything goes through a 3rd party escrow. The site you're trying to access only gets a message from the trusted ID partner that you are indeed the age you say you are.

Now, I still hate the idea that any corporation is storing my ID, but it's not every Tom Dicken' Harry porn site you might be viewing.

Many bars and casinos store your ID forever.

It seems to me that age verification via ID submission online and the subsequent storage of IDs are separate issues.

How could they be separate issues when the submission of an ID image obviously enables both the subsequent storage of the ID and also the presentment of the ID to others.

We know that very few organizations are capable of effectively controlling confidential information that they're legally bound to keep confidential. Requiring things that are going to lead to large stores of ID images is asking for trouble.

When you show your ID in a store, the clerk generally doesn't retain a copy of it, and if they do, it's apparent because they take the card to scan it... regardless, they can't take the scanned copy and present it at another store, because the other store will detect that it's not an original.

Because they are. You do not have to store the ID for verification: storage it’s just one way to implement such a system.

I agree with you that systems that store those IDs are ticking bombs.

Birthday attack: most places punch the eight digits MMDDYYYY into the keypad. You think you're safe, but that's 1 in over 20,000 uniqueness practically. Each store has how many local regulars? Sure sometimes there's overlap in birthdays, but it's unique enough.

Interesting, why did you give up your right to buy liquor anonymously? And you also seem to be willing to give up your right to anonymous porn. Why?

Most of us alive in the US today never had a right to buy liquor anonymously, unless you’re making a natural rights argument independent of contrary constitutional or statutory law. The 21st Amendment gives lots of authority to states to regulate or prohibit alcohol sales, including the right to require ID.

With that said, even now, it’s normal that liquor stores only look at IDs without transmitting or recording the information anywhere (in the absence of fraud concerns), so if the purchase itself is made with cash, it has most (not quite all) of the same data privacy and security consequences as a true anonymous purchase.

This is very different from the online porn age verification proposals.

> why did you give up your right to buy liquor anonymously?

That's not entirely true - once you look old enough most places will stop asking for ID.

As for why: because there is (or at least, was) no other system to identify whether someone is underage and, by extension, more likely to underestimate the consequences of their actions, make worse choices under the effect of alcohol, and suffer its effects more strongly. Same reason why the legal system makes a difference between minors and adults.