> But Apple and the ever-increasingly Orwellian UK government disagree.

You misplace your judgment on Apple. They didn't make the first move, they are responding to a government of a country they wish to continue operating in and made a business decision to start working on the feature and get ahead of it before governments start demanding they build the feature in specific ways (ie, the demand that Apple build a government backdoor, but turns out they can not be forced to build the government software, only be forced to turn over what they have). Building it first their way is actively doing something, it's controlling the implementation, while others seem to want to wait to be given specs by said government. It's happening either way. If you don't like it take the activism to the government, you know, the entity that is actually forcing this on people.

As an aside:

> You are forced to hand over your identity to be allowed to use the device you bought and paid for as you wish, and now your every move on that device is linked directly to you.

> Your device is crippled until you consent to surveillance.

For Apple devices it already was and you already have (sure, not if you are part of the small handful of people that never connect the device to telecoms or the internet or any networking, or use any apps other than preinstalled/offline jailbroken ones).But if the argument was in good faith, we know that is not how the majority of people use these devices.

> It is literally forced upon you.

It literally is not. You are not "forced" to do anything, no one is forced to buy or use the device. No one is "forced" to update iOS. There are alternatives, if you don't like the those alternatives and only want an updated current or new Apple device without age verification, well now you have a choice to make. Or make no choice, the choice is yours.