[…]it seems pretty similar to age-based tobacco, marijuana, alcohol, or gambling restrictions to me.

Weed isn’t legal to buy in the UK, so we can ignore that one, as you don’t need to use ID.

As for tobacco, alcohol and gambling, these are based on “If you visually look under 25 years of age, we’ll ask for ID to prove that you’re over 16/18 etc”.

If you go into the shop, and visually look 30 or 40 years old or whatever, no ID is required.

If you show ID, the person in the shop looks at the ID, then gives you it back. The interaction ends there.

They don’t care what your name is. They don’t store the ID. They don’t record that “this person with this ID bought these things”. They don’t create a database of who you are, what you buy and cross reference it with other things you do, places you go etc. They don’t follow you home and see what you do with the alcohol/tobacco/gambling - they leave you alone, none of their business.

Online scanned ID is stored, databased, cross-referenced, attached to online accounts, bank accounts, mortgage accounts etc permanently.

Say for example, “Reform” become the next UK Government. In local councils, they’ve been trying to ban/cut funding to/actively oppose “gay stuff”, “woke stuff”, “trans stuff” and “autistic stuff”. They want to crack down on things like “women’s rights”, “trans rights” etc.

Suppose that’s our next Government?

Suppose they’ve got a database of passports and photos and addresses of everyone who’s ever said or done anything gay/“woke”/autistic/trans?

Was it worth it?

Instead of just putting fucking parental controls on admin accounts on phones and computers?