I know most of this affects only the US, but I'm wondering where this will go in the EU if the Age Verification Tech goes ahead in America. There's been lots of efforts to increase surveillance disguised as protection for kids in the EU and UK.

The Swiss implementation of eID may be hint that governments may/will take the responsibility to implement and maintain the tech, but the multiple intrusions and lobbying by Palantir and friends in the EU gives me the ick.

I think age verification laws are good in principle - there's a lot of stuff on the internet that people should be protected from. But it's the manner of age verification that is the issue.

The EU has zero knowledge proof age verification systems, e.g. through your bank, which are secure and don't involve sending a copy of your ID and / or face scan to a dodgy US based 3rd party.

I expect the internet to be overrun with noise due to bots. So I have a feeling that eIDs are inevitable as a solution in the long run. If that is the case shouldn't we push for zero knowledge solutions?