There’s also mention of an updated process for submitting your ID photo for account verification. It’s decidedly less sophisticated and simply involves snapping a photo of your ID on a flat, well-lit surface and submitting the picture.

We’ve asked Facebook for comment. Code like this isn’t necessarily a guarantee that a feature is coming — it sometimes represents a test for something that might never see the light of day.

If it does launch in earnest, though, it might draw controversy. While Facebook has been addressing issues, it’s still true that the company is still dealing with privacy concerns. A facial recognition-based ID system could reduce the chances of someone compromising your account, but it could also prompt fears (justified or not) that the company might misuse face data or risk a breach that let this data reach hackers.

“Home Affairs is developing a Face Verification Service which matches a person’s photo against images used on one of their evidence of identity documents to help verify their identity,” the Home Affairs agency wrote in a submission. “This could assist in age verification, for example by preventing a minor from using their parent’s driver license to circumvent age verification controls.”

You’d think online porn would be the least of a government’s concern, particularly given the complete failure of the UK to block it. Australia is bound to face many of the same issues, including the technical challenge of blocking anything on the internet in age of VPNs. There’s also the thorny privacy issue of having to essentially create a database of porn viewers.

To enforce the proposed law, Australia would use a new facial recognition scheme that could be accessed by banks, government agencies, ISPs and other companies. That alone would be a privacy nightmare, creating a tempting target for hackers.

The government believes porn verification could work since other counties, including Italy and Denmark, have successfully created age verification systems for online gambling. A sex industry lobby group suggested that ISPs could simply provide stronger parental controls to allow parents to filter websites. However, the University of New South Wales’ Law Society pointed out that nothing is 100 percent effective, as there are literally millions of domains and apps that let users get around blocking.