I haven’t seen any suggestions on this age verification movement that anonymizes users. The obvious big concern for privacy, tracking, etc.

If a site redirected a user to a trusted government PKI or identity system like their BMV, and the only answer the website being visited got was ‘over 18 = true’, I suspect it would be less intrusive.

There’s still the problem of the government systems extended to do this. Will they be secure? Will politicians try to collect that data? Will they sell it?

I personally in no way trust websites with personal data beyond what we are forced to just deal with or not function in life: banks, cellular carrier, utilities, online shopping, etc. It’s an enormous list.

I would support a single government identity service if they handled personal details and allowed removing all that from individual websites and stores, but that’s basically what a social security number is.

This whole thing is extremely complex and has the ability to go very wrong.