What a new age-verification law actually requires of websites
The headlines say “ID checks.” The compliance text says something messier.
Age-verification laws keep arriving faster than the infrastructure to comply with them cleanly. The gap between “verify a user's age” and “collect and store a government ID” is where most of the actual controversy lives.
Nobody disagrees with the goal. Everybody disagrees with the implementation.
Smaller sites are left choosing between expensive third-party verification services, blocking entire regions, or taking on legal risk — a choice that larger platforms don't have to make the same way.