July 1, 2026
ID Please... but make it spooky
What's wrong with EU age verification? (Nothing)
EU age checks spark a privacy brawl as commenters ask who really gets watched
TLDR: The article says EU age verification can protect kids without exposing people’s identities, if it’s built carefully. Commenters were not buying the happy ending: they argued it could still become surveillance, be easy to game, or simply make the internet feel like a checkpoint.
The article came in swinging with a calm-sounding message: online age checks are not the problem — bad implementation is. The author argues that kids probably shouldn’t be roaming every corner of the internet unsupervised, but adults also shouldn’t have to hand over passports, selfies, or their full identity just to prove they’re old enough to enter a site. In theory, the EU’s approach is supposed to confirm only one thing — are you over the age limit or not — without turning the web into a giant ID line.
But the comments? Absolute popcorn material. The biggest vibe was deep suspicion. One camp basically said, “Nice fantasy, but this will end in surveillance anyway.” That was the mood of commenters like satansdeer, who gave the classic internet shrug: sure, maybe the privacy-friendly version is possible, but no one believes that’s the version governments or companies will actually build. Another camp got hung up on the practical stuff: if someone can borrow an older sibling’s ID at a bar, what stops the same trick online? Others went even further, calling out what they saw as a contradiction: parents are told to give teens more freedom while the state adds more locks to the doors.
And then came the nerd-fight energy: people grilling the details, asking who issued the proof, who owns it, and whether a website can really verify age without learning anything else. Translation: the article said “nothing is wrong,” while the comment section replied, “we have several thousand follow-up questions”. Privacy panic mode was very much activated.
Key Points
- •The article argues that online age verification can be legitimate and compares it to existing age restrictions for activities such as driving, drinking, gambling, and venue access.
- •It says common age-verification methods like ID uploads, passport scans, selfies, and face scans can expose excessive personal information to private websites.
- •It says third-party sign-in through banks, Google, Apple, mobile operators, or government identity services can shift the privacy risk by allowing the identity provider to learn which sites users access.
- •The article proposes verifying only that a user meets an age threshold, such as age being greater than or equal to a required minimum, rather than revealing full identity details or exact age.
- •It uses an offline analogy of an official 'over 18' credential to explain how a digital, cryptographically signed age attestation could validate age eligibility without disclosing unrelated personal data.