this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2026
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You don't need to show ID to enter the store just because they sell cigarettes at the front counter. The staff person checking the OD at the front counter isn't memorizing the information on the ID and using it to track every other purchase you make in the store, or to piece together what you're doing once you leave the store.
Locking individual content behind age verification (and it entirely depends on how they are handling the age verification), is different than a blanket identification check to use the platform at all. Age verification is used to prevent children from buying cigarettes from a store while under aged, but it's up to parents to prevent them from getting cigarettes other ways.
But let’s separate the technical/privacy discussion of age gating from the discussion about age gating social media platforms.
If I go to a Scottish distillery website and buys chocolate, they are not going to age gate me. If I buy whisky they will. That’s not age gating at the door, that’s age gating for a specific product that we, our democratic society, have decided, through democratic means, should not be available to minors.
Regulating social media age gating is a different discussion altogether. The discussion is about whether we want to be able to anonymously check (again, the EU standard requires anonymity) someone’s age online.
Stop moving the goal posts. Also, no one has convincingly shown they can do that anonymously, but lots have shown they CAN'T. You can't divorce the privacy implications because they are intrinsically linked right now and there is no evidence supporting the ability to unlink them.
Which goal posts have I moved?
The architecture for Zero Knowledge Proofs is not novel and well understood.
You prove your identity to the issuer of tokens. They issue you a set of signed tokens that only they could have signed. You issue one of these tokens and a nullifier to a location that needs to verify your age. The verifying location checks the signature and lets you in. They return the nullifier to the token issuer.
The issuer can OF COURSE verify that you’ve used your tokens if they store the tokens they issue. You do have to trust your government for this system to work. But you already trust your government not to mass-surveil you through your ISP, mobile phone provider and credit card spend. This doesn’t increase your defend surface.