> They are built to know who you are: your name, your date of birth, your document number, your face. This is not age verification at all. It is forced identity tracking.
This doesn't have to be the case. https://www.w3.org/TR/digital-credentials/ seems a sensible system where you can have a single identity provider (hopefully someone you trust) who can then verify things like "is this person over 18?" without givin away any excessive information to a third party. Hopefully it gains some traction.
A sensible system would require no trust. You could trust no provider would collude or be hacked ever. But to prevent governments to demand records requires records not exist.