I have mixed feelings about a world where zero-knowledge-based ID verification gets so good that it reduces barriers to being adopted widely.
On the one hand, it's better than a world where non-privacy-respecting ID verification becomes required anyways, and thus every bit of your online behavior becomes tied to your actual identity.
On the other hand, the presence of this kind of technology makes it easier for governments to say things like "all ___ content online must be restricted to ages 18+ or 21+" and actually have a way to implement that across Discord and TikTok and gaming chatrooms and everything inbetween, in a way that has already been deployed at scale... because it had not already been fought against from a privacy perspective when it was deployed for things like public transit.
The things that can be placed in that blank are far more widespread than one might initially think.
On the one hand, it's better than a world where non-privacy-respecting ID verification becomes required anyways, and thus every bit of your online behavior becomes tied to your actual identity.
On the other hand, the presence of this kind of technology makes it easier for governments to say things like "all ___ content online must be restricted to ages 18+ or 21+" and actually have a way to implement that across Discord and TikTok and gaming chatrooms and everything inbetween, in a way that has already been deployed at scale... because it had not already been fought against from a privacy perspective when it was deployed for things like public transit.
The things that can be placed in that blank are far more widespread than one might initially think.