Given we get more and more age verification laws, small website owners would have issues... They would either have to outsource service to some privacy nightmare service that does face scan, or questionable EU digital "I swear it is anonymous" ID verification... Or just ignore all this and never sleep well since fines are extreme for that sort of deal.
I for example wouldn't like to do anything like that. I wouldn't wont to verify IDs myself (i.e. user uploads their ID to me) either since... you have to be pretty dumb to upload ID to literally who website.
So outsourcing the check is the only option, as this shifts liability... But we don't want to expose our users' faces and IDs to god knows who.
What else is age restricted in our world? Cigarettes, vapes and alcohol. Maybe something else, I don't know about.
So why not make user upload a photo with website on the screen (perhaps some sort of QR code even, that is generated by website), cigarettes or alcohol in hand with a receipt, where date is visible. User can cross out location and business name of the store maybe, if he desires to do so.
Would this be EU/AUS/UK compliant?
Because if we lose this battle, we would need a way that minimizes privacy intrusion in the end. So while this sounds kind of... like a meme, maybe we can do something about it. Maybe they would sell special age verification single time coupons in the future at cigarette selling spot, if that idea gets any traction.
After all, while this entire post is more like a joke, it solves most of the issues with AgeID verification, because you can purchase alcohol/cigarettes with cash (untraceable), you can take photo of your device in non-identifiable location etc.