@Gina the age verification thing is a demo (not even part of the original proposal) for the EU Digital Wallet Id, which is a proposal that I think is critically misunderstood by the masses.
The EU Digital Wallet Id replaces the fragmented and different (and oftentimes lacking) national solutions to identifying yourself online. Say you want to login to a government website, e.g. to do your taxes, in Finland you have to login *with your bank*. And some member states have their own official governemnt owned service for identifying yourself with. EU Digital Wallet Id replaces all of this to make it much more streamlined (also they use multiple and different providers, the EU doesn't have this data, and iirc it works locally on device?), it to me does not seem like "Digital ID" in the fearmongering way that the media pushes.
And the age verification thing is a demo of using the API of the Digital Wallet Id to create a proof that you are above the age of 18. So now that the Commission sees a huge wave for age verification, and they have the technology (and legislation, DSA) to do it, they've been pushing the new thing, not a fan of this.