Age of account was sufficient for Google and third-party services for verification until recently. My gmail account is almost 22 years old, in continuous use. I have a credit card on file with Google Pay. Why would I need to submit a photo to engage with a private service, outside of volunteering to help train a surveillance apparatus?

Is there any forum short of a senate subcommittee that the public can ask companies these questions? The silence is deafening.

Probably because the transfer of accounts (typically for reasons of better spamming, but in this case for adult access) is possible.

However, that makes me wonder what mechanism might "unverify" an account holder's age upon transfer. I suppose it's simply a need to re-verify (take a new photo) upon every login, but then folks could transfer the session cookie to avoid needing the new owner to perform a login (unless a new device ID/fingerprint makes the old cookie useless).