yeah, but wait till you have to id yourself to use online governments service, or do a one hour drive to meet in person with officials. and then if you have to do this four times. i gave up and submited my face to save 8+ hours and inevitably most of people will do the same...

The solution is zk verifiable credentials, which would let folks prove their age without revealing their DOB (or anything else on their ID) to third parties.

This is possible today with complete privacy for people with biometric IDs and biometric passports (ie most passports, EU IDs, Aadhaar IDs, and more) using a service like self.xyz

I have a date I use that's incorrect, but consistent so I can remember it if I need to, that I use for age verification for anything that doesn't truly need an accurate birthdate (example, age verification to view games on Steam).

It's roughly the same age as mine, but if someone tried to pass themselves off as me with that birthdate, they wouldn't succeed.

These companies are mostly just verifying I'm an adult anyway, and I am legit that.

But yeah, I don't like just giving the actual date everywhere as it can potentially be used for identity theft.

I'm not reluctant. Rather, there's zero chance I'll do this. If Discord wants to put me into <18 mode for it, fine.

I sort of get his point, but on the other hand, if the debate is "should social media sites be age restricted / have mandatory age verification?" then the argument "I can't see any reason to, because I personally don't use social media" doesn't seem particularly useful.

This stuff worries me as one needs to be a hard target when they reach their 80 and 90’s. People do not need personal info out there in the public domain.

Personal harm may vary. If the government is coming for you (ICE) cookies could pinpoint your address, and since ice uses palatine or just buys data from brokers, they’ll use that to show up on your lawn.

I was annoyed the other day when Reddit asked for age verification (via a Palantir-run service, no less) for my 18-year-old Reddit account. Obviously no way I’m doing that.

In any case I doubt there’s a proof of age stronger than looking at the subreddits I subscribe to. A broad selection of middle-age hobbies and tedious interests. Without me proving my age they could probably place it to within a few weeks.

I think there should be an option to assume I'm a child and proceed from there. If I want access to any mature content or real identify related stuff, I'll verify, but if your service doesn't have or need that anyways then there's no reason to prove I'm an adult.