It will always be worth restating no matter how many times or in how many ways it's said. Privacy isn't just some word bad people hide behind. Trust and safety should apply to all users.

I'm not going to presume VRChat's need to perform identity verification as part of their strategy. I'm just throwing my opinion in that the level of data sharing is excessive for the goal of age verification and creating a reasonably safe environment.

Laws can change or be broken. Policies can be quietly ignored. People can be put at risk through no fault of their own. I'm of the opinion that platforms like VRChat have a responsibility to implement these systems in a way that maximizes and maintains privacy. VRChat are the ones that want to own the platform after all - rather than letting users self-host or federate. The level of trust that can be put into the 'trust me bro' assurance that PII or other personal data artifacts are handled appropriately is paper thin. VRChat's choice of partner has (rightfully) come into public view on multiple occasions for exactly the wrong reasons.

VRChat has become an important social outlet for me. My group has taken to mostly use 18+ instances regardless. So now I become a burden if I'm to be included (not a great feeling). I can only speculate other groups are the same. Meaning verification is all but necessary to even participate and will probably get worse once content gating is in. Making the verification process a matter of coercion rather than purely of consent.

I sincerely hope VRChat comes up with a more appropriate solution.