The European Commission recently announced the technical readiness of a new European age verification app, positioned as a privacy-preserving tool to protect children from harmful, illegal, and addictive online content including grooming, bullying, and exposure to dangerous material. Users upload a passport or national ID to generate age attestations via zero-knowledge proofs, allowing platforms to verify eligibility (e.g., over 18) without receiving full personal data. This solution builds directly on the technical architecture of the EU Digital COVID Certificate system rolled out during the pandemic, which normalized cross-border digital credentialing at scale, and is designed for integration into the forthcoming EU Digital Identity Wallets (EUDI Wallets) mandated under the eIDAS 2.0 framework for availability across Member States by the end of 2026. While the Commission emphasizes its open-source nature, anonymity features, and voluntary character, digital rights groups identify it as the thin end of the wedge for mandatory-style digital ID requirements online. EDRi warns of scope creep beyond adult content platforms into general web access, optional rather than mandatory privacy safeguards like unlinkability, risks of digital footprints enabling surveillance, and exclusion of users without smartphones or official IDs. The EFF similarly critiques the 'mini-wallet' approach for potentially normalizing government ID checks to access information, creating chilling effects on whistleblowing, protest, and sensitive searches while sidelining less invasive solutions. This fits larger patterns of global digital control: pandemic health passes provided the precedent and infrastructure for verifiable credentials; the Digital Services Act pushes platforms toward age assurance to mitigate 'systemic risks' including 'hateful' or 'illegal' speech; and the EUDI Wallet creates a unified backend capable of linking attributes far beyond age—potentially encompassing financial data, qualifications, and future behavioral metrics. What begins as child protection rapidly evolves into standardized verification for 'safe' internet participation, eroding the pseudonymity that has defined online discourse and aligning with international pushes for verifiable digital identity as a governance tool. Official claims of data minimization clash with the centralized issuance layer and integration incentives, revealing a trajectory toward comprehensive digital citizenship where anonymity is reframed as a vector for trolling and societal harm.