This is just my speculation, so take it as you will. The EU has been pushing for digital ID cards for quite a while, and this is just another attempt. The last serious attempt was the Covid vaccination passport, but so many people still opted for paper certs, and the rest deleted the app when vaccination was no longer mandatory, that it failed again. So, now the authorities are becoming smart and trying to go through the vector that has a proven record of driving technological change: porn.

Edit: German eID works on any Android btw., flawless actually. I sure hope I can use that for verification

Same in Italy... I mean, I can pay taxes with that application but I cannot be verified for my age ? Seriously EU ?

Too many bots online I'd like to know if I'm talking to a real sockpuppet when I'm online :D...but just for that and only share data from my "wallet id" on a strict need to know basis.

IMEI is PII

Why is the government so obsessed with parenting and nannying the citizens?

I think it's because people from outside the traditional political families are getting popular votes.

For the established politicians, blaming "the internet" and building a supressing censorship machine is easier than looking in the mirror and seeing where the discontent comes from.

Is it tied to my real identity?
If not it seems to me that it should be sufficient as to serve as a security this phone is legit and not emulated/compromised.

To avoid people from simply copying the "age proof" and having others reuse it, a nonce/private key combo is needed. To protect that key a DRM style locked down device is necessary. Conveniently removing your ability to know what your device is doing, just a "trust us".

Seeing the EU doesn't make any popular hardware, their plan will always rely on either Asian or US manufacturers implementing the black-box "safety" chip.

You should read more international news if you think either the EU or US is "the worst place". Somalia for example has been in civil war since the 1980s.

And the EU for their stupid fucking censorship

This sounds like a misunderstanding of gdpr to me?

What's going on with Europe lately? You all really want GOOGLE of all mega corps in control of your identity?

You're going the opposite way, it should be your right to install an alternate OS on your phone. If anything they should be banning Google licensed Android.

I just wanted the EU to fork lineageOS and provide it as an alternative in major chains.

Yes it's tied to your identity. That's what PII is. It's also not tied at all to your OS.

I miss LineageOS so much, my last couple of phones haven't had a build of it and my asshole banking apps wont work on it now.

For my next phone i'm just not going to buy one unless it's already supported and if I have to skip online banking I'll do it.

Sure, but it has some good sides as well

It's just a shame that they aren't just made of the good sides

There is a bit of a conflict between the laws requiring certain companies to identify their clients and GDPR in basis, but there is something in GDPR that allows these companies to still collect the relevant data and use it or to verify the data and not store it depending on the use case.

The whole use case thing is even the reason why companies are allowed to collect data from you. You couldn't get anything delivered if this exception wasn't there, because they wouldn't be allowed to progress your address.

At least that's what I gathered from the Dutch implementation the AVG, when I last read it a couple years ago.

Doesn't harvest enough data.

Its not the populace, our politicians just like in the US have gone rogue. People are voting for the nutters due to anti immigration propaganda and so increasingly getting far right. Its happening across the entire western world and its bad news for everyone.

Fascism is making a comeback, and everyone's dumb enough to believe it's an America problem, instead of a global oligarchy, class war, problem.

Been wondering myself. It's certainly part of the general right-ward trend. Societies are becoming more illiberal. It's not just the right that is moving to the right.

Obscenity laws have always been about enforcing the "correct" sexuality. Protecting minors meant preventing them from becoming "confused"; ie becoming LGBTQ.

You also have growing nationalism. In Europe, people are saying we should enforce "our laws" and "our values" against meddling foreigners (ie Big Tech). It often sounds a lot like the rants against the "globalists" that have been a staple among the US far right for decades. Age verification is part of that.

For example, Germany has long enforced age verification within its borders. It's part of the whole over-regulation thing that makes competitive tech companies almost impossible in Europe. For some reason, Europeans have trouble accepting that. You can see it here on Lemmy. The solution must be to enshittify everything to level the playing field.