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Governments worldwide are implementing mandatory age verification systems under the guise of child protection, requiring users to submit government IDs and biometric data to access social media and websites. These systems create centralized databases of sensitive personal information vulnerable to breaches, as demonstrated by recent incidents like the Tea App hack. The infrastructure built for age checks can easily expand into broader surveillance tools, while workarounds like VPNs and fake IDs show the ineffectiveness of these measures. Privacy-preserving alternatives like anonymous tokens and decentralized verification exist but are being overlooked in favor of surveillance-friendly solutions.

Death of Anonymity: The Global Push for Internet ID

Knowledge by Execution - Breaking Down Tech for the Mango Man (Aam Aadmi/Regular Person) - https://www.sknexus.org/

SK NEXUS

I do think the argument that we should look at ZKP or some other zero-trust approach is valid - but the suggestion that new digital ID cards “create centralized databases of sensitive personal information” is naive. Those databases already exist - the photo shown is of a UK drivers’ licence, which already exists in a database which can be looked up by the DVLA, police, etc. Similarly your passport already exists in a database and can be checked. So are your car ownership details.
There’s a valid argument about how this is all looked after and how any new system is built, but I don’t recall reading about a data breach of the DVLA for example, so I think the alarmism is unhelpful!

Idk, to an extent I kinda like the idea of people being held accountable for their words/posts, as opposed to nameless, faceless, people with no skin in the game are just shilling/slurring/etc. from the dark.
There is a special case I’d make for whistleblowers, but then again there are traditional ways of doing it like the press, there is dark web, there are non-regulated platforms that can serve the purpose. There ARE ways.

This is so true. Most systems where you need to work on and earn money on, requires government ID card vertification.

I mean the ZKP approach seems reasonable to me, we have lots of solutions already that are running on the trust of government. As such the benefits of actually enforcing the age restrictions seem to outweigh the drawbacks, at least in my estimation.

they will face many technological challenges if they decide to implement it and deploy it, specially in the era of AI and deep fakes.
I have seen people trying to pass ID verification using pictures of the person in the ID (impersonating), and passing it.