I totally understand that. And FWIW, I used to sit squarely in the camp that this wasn’t just foolish, it was nefarious.

But the challenge is really in how the UK has decided to implement this - zero knowledge proofs should have been a legal requirement like it is the the EU infrastructure regulation.

If there really, truly was no way to tie back proving your age to who proved their age, then surely this is a good thing? The slippery slope argument I understand but it is, at heart, at fallacy. “Well, if you start putting people in prison for murder, then pretty soon you’ll start putting people in prison for breathing”.

I’m obviously against having to prove your identity to access some content. But can I not support having to prove your age (in a fully anonymous way) without automatically saying “let’s know exactly who is accessing what and when”?

FWIW, Denmark has had this digital infrastructure in the last 10 years and it’s been the foundation of a huge transformation in terms of how people interact with the government services.

It’s also extremely privacy preserving and while Denmark is actually moving forward with an age proving infrastructure like Britain, it’s designed with zero knowledge proofs so literally no-one knows where you have proved your age.

I don’t have a problem with the infrastructure. I have a problem with how Britain designs and uses the infrastructure.