It is a valid alternative avenue towards a legal implementation of "child safeguarding" IMO. Someone pays for the internet, that person is responsible for what minors do on their connection. If they have trouble doing that we can use normal societal mechanisms like idk social services, education, and government messaging.

This is the way it works with e.g. alcohol and cigarettes, most places. Famously kids can just get a beer from a random fridge and chug it, but someone 16/18/21+ will be responsible and everyone seems mostly fine with this.

If protecting children were the actual intended outcome, this would have been the logical way to do it. Since it isn't what they're actually doing, instead using personally identifiable information to establish your age, we can only assume it's an attempt to deanonymize the internet.

This will never work.

I regularly talk to other parents at the school gates who have no idea that permissions on mobiles even exist, let alone that they can choose what they let each app have access to.

The general public people just dont care.