[jeroenhd]

To be fair to some of them, across the Atlantic the Americans are implementing similar laws in absolutely ridiculous ways.

Many Americans don't even have ID (and plenty of those are reluctant to the general concept of any kind of government ID), let alone any kind of digital ID. However, their governments are pushing frankly weird and absurd ID verification laws to businesses online. Meta seems to be bankrolling lobbying around these laws, so whatever their game is, it's probably very bad for normal people.

If you're coming from a place where the government tells companies they need to set up a system or hire private companies to verify users' ages without providing any kind of official mechanism themselves, leading to ridiculous hacks from cheap and incompetent "age verification" companies, I can understand why the European system seems absurd.

If the US is going to adopt their weird age verification laws, the least they could do is fork the European system already laid out for them. Put a little American flag on it, call it "America First Christian Age Truthness" or whatever the people in charge like, but at least keep the basic privacy properties intact.

[SoftTalker]

> Many Americans don't even have ID

I don't believe this. "Many" perhaps in raw out-of-context numbers but as a percentage of the population, very few functioning, self-supporting and employed adults in America do not have an ID. It's simply not possible to participate in society without one. You need an ID to register a car, to drive, to vote, to bank, to get a job, to buy a house, to rent an apartment, to get water, power, gas, internet....

If you don't have an ID, you are either a child, or you are deliberately trying to exist off the record. I.e. you are here illegally or you have chosen some very fringe antisocial survivalist offgrid way of living.

[tzs]

> It's simply not possible to participate in society without one. You need an ID to register a car, to drive, to vote, to bank, to get a job, to buy a house, to rent an apartment, to get water, power, gas, internet....

Around 10% of American adults do not drive.

6% of American adults do not have a bank account (4% for whites and Asians, 11% for Hispanic, and 14% for Black). It is 23% for people with incomes under $25k [1].

About 20% of adult Americans who are not retired do not have a job [1]. Did you forget that some people live with other people and in many of those arrangements only one of them has a job?

Many people have living arrangements where they are not the owner or the renter of record of the place they live. For example many people who live with others as described above.

Approximately 5% of the US economy is cash based and often does not care whether you have any formal ID. Often people who live mostly in the cash economy live in areas with many other such people, which makes it easier.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/02/23percent-of-low-income-amer...

[2] https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2022/whos-not-working...

[petre]

Relax, it would probably buit by Palantir and operated by Meta /s.

[dzhiurgis]

You joke, but at least it would work well, be secure and cost appropriate. All at a cost of imaginary privacy that you don’t have already.

[aquariusDue]

I thought that's what the blue checkmark on X was for already /s