tl;dr: Australia's under-16 social media ban, now being emulated by the UK, EU, and various US states/federal proposals like KOSA, forces platforms to verify users' ages via government IDs, biometrics, or third-party services—creating massive privacy risks, as evidenced by a recent Discord breach exposing 70,000 Australians' ID data. Beyond data breach exposure, these mandates effectively end online anonymity, chill speech on sensitive topics, and may extend to cracking down on VPNs. The author argues this "papers, please" infrastructure of surveillance, once built, will be nearly impossible to dismantle—and isn't even effectively keeping kids off social media.