I’ve been following the age verification debate for a while now, and honestly, every time I think it can’t get more dystopian, something new comes along to prove me wrong. This week’s revelation about Persona – the age verification vendor that’s been exposed for running what essentially amounts to a comprehensive surveillance operation – is both shocking and entirely predictable.

For those who haven’t heard, researchers discovered that Persona’s system doesn’t just verify your age. Oh no, that would be far too reasonable. Instead, it performs 269 distinct verification checks, runs facial recognition against watchlists and politically exposed persons, screens “adverse media” across 14 categories including terrorism and espionage, and assigns risk and similarity scores. They collect and can retain for up to three years your IP addresses, browser fingerprints, device fingerprints, government ID numbers, phone numbers, names, faces, and a whole battery of “selfie” analytics.