Why would an age verification app need to know your ethnicity/religion?
Governments likely already know your name, age, place of birth, so having an app with a standard API for verifying users isn't giving the government additional data.
It is one extra attack vector. There is a data leak reported every week, and it is now apparent we cannot trust any organization to handle any datum securely, at all. It has gotten to the point where I now consider every piece of information compromised and sold on the dark web as soon as I am forced to transfer it to a third party. Because those are the odds.
Doing absolutely everything useful with that data is "one extra attack vector". That is not any kind of a persuasive argument in itself.
It's also replacing all the personal information stores from thousand applications and websites you have previously registered, or would have to. So arguably it's thousand attack vectors less.
Governments will track with whom you verify. Much worse.
"government" age verification app will be made and maintan
ed by some corp anyways.
so it will gather extra data, sell it sideways and leak like hell. (as they already do with all the data they already have)
I'm imagining something like recreation.gov in the US - it's the portal for booking campsites and other activities at national parks. It's run by BAH at great profit - most of the fees we pay aren't going to the national park service, it almost all goes to our corporate overlords.