Surprised this hasn't gotten more coverage. VeriSign has just announced a new USB key that they claim will assist in identifying children online. This kind of age verification has been an area of concern since COPA, but no one has ever really been able to make it work due to the difficulty of verification and of standardization in age certification technologies. VeriSign is apparently making a run at it, offering the bizarrely-named "i-Stik," capable of attesting to a child's age and gender. The product will be offered free to students, once administrators provide a list of the children's names, ages, and genders.
Two thoughts: is this kind of thing covered by COPPA? And how is VeriSign guaranteeing the security of this information it's collecting?