There is no encryption involved. They just give you a token that verifies your age and you present the token to the site.

But you have to submit evidence of age to some site, right? So where does that evidence (your ID) get sent to or stored? Once it's sent, are you sure it's not stored? Is the token unique or traceable to you?

I honestly don't know, and when I don't know, I have to assume it's not staying private.

Your evidence is already stored with the gov, regardless of the any age verification systems. And the gov provides your token. If you honestly don't know, you should research instead of making assumptions.

European Digital Identity

Official GitHub Organization of the European Digital Identity project. - European Digital Identity

GitHub (github.com)

Somewhere in a government building in the UK: We did it, Patrick...

Pretty concerning that a "western democracy" is doing this, because it gives cover for the next one and the next one.

It's easy to say "oh I'll just stop using such and such a service" but what happens when there are no more legal services to switch to?

Just hope they (Facebook and friends) give you the choice to delete OR verify those accounts and not require verification to delete it.

Headlines like this really need to put the emphasis on the cause, e.g. "UK Government Forces Bluesky to Roll Out Age Verification"

the KWS service they've chosen to use keeps far too much information

Headlines like this really need to put the emphasis on the cause, e.g. "UK Government Forces Bluesky to Roll Out Age Verification"

If they did this here, I'd just stop using bluesky. I'm 41. But I have no interest in verifying ages online. We've all seen how poorly companies handle intetnal security.

Just yesterday McDonalds had their entire database of applications compromised because someone tried the password 123456.

Bluesky would be dropped instantly.