Well, sure. But that doesn't answer my original question - which 3rd party provider do you trust more with your own data more than the government[which in most cases already has this data]

Data ownership is just one area of concern. Controlling our access to the internet is another.

If age verification was an open standard, we could hope for competition so that we could jump ship from a bad actor. If one blocks our access, we would have alternatives. In theory.

Not so with a centralized government-mandated service.