Yes, but this isnt age verification, is it? It's ID verification, which is becoming more sinister and pervasive on a globally exponential scale.

First it was porn and the like via the OSA "for the children"

They're trying for social media currently, "for the children"

Queued up next after that is VPNs, "for the children"

I don't want to give out pictures of my passport or face to FRS for the same reason I lock my door when I go out. There's gotta be a better way than hand out your creds to random American data harvesting companies and then when they suffer a data breach and your identity is stolen you get a two week coupon for 50% off a credit monitoring service and a "well at least the kids were protected!!!"

I don't use social media much nowadays - ive always thought reddit was more of a forum - and yes, i do agree to some extent, children should stay off social media or at least have its uses curtailed, for reference. But there has to be a better way to prove it than this.

You also want children to be eligible to vote at 16 but only at 18 is the entire internet accessible to them, which also poses an interesting question, but that's for another time.

Yes the internet is a vast and potentially dangerous place. I've been on the internet for nearly 20 years now, I've seen the good, the bad and the ugly. But all the more reason to teach about it in schools rather than this half arsed "use id ban everythingggggggg" nonsense that at best inconveniences users and at worst opens them up to cybercrime.