I think a law verifying your age over the internet inherently breaks the idea of a free internet, of which we are already seeing degradation of by Google and DRM/web integrity anyways.

And fuck sending your driver's license to random shady porn sites

I think there is a lot more to this that a secure way or protecting children.

It's the base idea that I have to prove who I am online at all. That I cannot lie. Lieing should be a fundamental right. Not identifying yourself should be a fundamental right. Giving a false name should be a fundamental right.

The way the US is going, with anti-LGBT laws popping up all over the place, I have less trust for the government collecting that information than the sketchy porn sites themselves.

The only implementation I would support is one where the asking website doesn't know your ID, and the verifying website doesn't know what you're trying to visit. Essentially just asking for a one-time use token that verified your age, and providing that token to the website you're trying to visit.

Edit for a bit more detail: User authenticates to ID website, which provides them a token with age verification (true/false) and a short (10 minute?) TTL. This token is encrypted by the ID website. User then provides this token to the asking website (eg: pornhub). Pornhub then sends the token back to the ID website to decrypt it. All pornhub knows about you is whether or not you're of age, and the verifying website never knows what the token is for.

The concept is fine, but even the best known implementation is impossible without putting an unacceptable level of trust in one group.

This should be parental controls - make websites declare a rating, then let the owners lock down devices

Nothing is going to be absolute, but we have to prioritize freedom or soon our Internet will look like China's. They've already been talking about banning vpns and kosa would make you tie ID to anywhere you can post - all social media is considered possible adult content by default