the law in the UK doesn't require any of that. It didn't even required Apple to do it. Ofcom is praising Apple for doing it even though it was not required. Social Networks need to do it.

You do realise I am free to modify it or pick a distribution so that isn't the case too?

This UK law does not apply to OSes. It applies to online platforms. The author ran into this problem because using the iPhone required an Apple account, which could be used for something that the law applies to, but Apple didn't want to implement lazy verification and instead required verification up front.