[The Verge] Microsoft starts rolling out Xbox age verification in the UK

So if I dont verify I cant get game invites but i can still buy AO titles? And photographs - wtf

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"Starting early next year, age verification will be required for these players in the UK to retain full access to social features on Xbox, such as voice or text communication and game invites," explains Kim Kunes, vice president of gaming trust and safety at Xbox. If you don't verify your age between now and early next year, social features "will become limited to friends only" until the age verification process has been completed.
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Does this cost extra? It looks like a perk to me.
 
Not enough of bad choices of publishers and developers, the politcians also fucks up the gaming industry. The latter should not even be a consideration in that subject thou
 
Just in time for Death Stranding to have been out on the system. UK Xbro's can also use Reedus's face to bypass these checks. :messenger_grinning_sweat:
 
Unpopular thing to say, but these big tech companies have neglected their duties towards underage kids for a very, very, VERY long time. And if they won't act (which they haven't), then no one should blame governments for stepping in and cracking the whip.

For the gaming companies, Steam in particular clearly have zero compliance people in place, it's easily the most abysmal big platform when it comes to parental tools and underage content filtering (there's literally no content age filter on either the library page or the store filters). Other companies like Epic or GOG lack these features too (no doubt spurred on by Steam's bullshit) and none of them seems to be in a rush to rectify that.

Coming in and demanding %12-30 of the take for a game or a piece of DLC means that these problems will land on your doorstep and it's your duty to take care of them for the health of your platform and the well-being of your (in this case underage) users. And so far the console makers have handled this so much better than the PC space.
 
Skifi28 said:
Indeed, I couldn't help but notice and point out the similarities in a different thread. It's quite scary how fast it's becoming a reality and I doubt the UK will be alone.
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Won't be, Australia is going for a similar thing, and so is the EU and even some/all of US I think.

Edit: I'm talking about the ID verification thing here..
 
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I can't believe there was a time where I considered moving to the UK. I'd never, ever want to live in a place where social media posts could send you to jail.
 
yurinka said:
Between this and the ID/face requirement for porn in UK, things are becoming very Orwellian.
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The UK has always been a nanny state. Remember the video nasties scare in the eighties? Movie censorship?

There was always this desire to control but it's really gotten out of hand in the past decade.

 
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Mithos said:
Won't be, Australia is going for a similar thing, and so is the EU and even some/all of US I think.

Edit: I'm talking about the ID verification thing here..
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The next step will be a ban on access to social media ban by minors. The EU has given the green light to implement this.

www.politico.eu

EU clears path for national social media bans

National governments increasingly ring the alarm about social media harms to minors’ health.
www.politico.eu www.politico.eu

"The European Commission on Monday said countries can implement their own national bans for minors on social media, in new guidelines under its powerful Digital Services Act.

The EU executive has been under pressure in recent months to roll out measures to protect minors online. National governments in France, Denmark, Spain and elsewhere have called for social media restrictions, with some criticizing the EU for not acting quickly enough.

France and the Netherlands have supported an outright ban of social media for minors under 15. Greece has said it thinks parental consent should be required for children under a certain age. Denmark, which currently helms work in the Council of the EU, is pushing for stronger EU-level actions."

------

When that happens and those teens start playing games nonstop to relieve their teenage angst, I wonder what will happen then ...
 
I remember a while back, GAF was jumping on that Hillary Clinton bandwagon and wanting GameStop employees to ID everyone for buying an M-rated game. Failure would lead to arrests for distributing violent content to kids. I think it was around GTA V release, that's how long ago it was.

On a side note, I don't get the big deal on this requirement if it's AO content. Is it just you don't want the government to have a photo of your face? Do Europeans not have photo IDs?
 
DryvBy said:
On a side note, I don't get the big deal on this requirement if it's AO content. Is it just you don't want the government to have a photo of your face? Do Europeans not have photo IDs?
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I don't want the government to have a list on what sites I verify my age.

If they could make it so.

1. The site you want to verify ON, only gets a Yes/No for the age verification and nothing else.
2. The site/place/institution that makes the verification not knowing which site/app/store I verify ON then it's "more" OK for me.

Edit: Also, not EVER going to sending a photo or using camera to film me either on the verification "place".
 
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My Xbox account is nearly old enough to buy itself a beer, so I hope I don't have to prove that I didn't set it up when I was a goddamn embryo.

Even if I did submit to age verification, what's to stop any kid in the house using the console? My daughter plays Minecraft on my account.
 
DryvBy said:
I don't get the big deal on this requirement if it's AO content. Is it just you don't want the government to have a photo of your face? Do Europeans not have photo IDs?
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The UK government has already tried banning certain types of porn, not just violent stuff but odd things like pissing.

If I have to give over my details to visit a site like Pornhub that has a category that I don't view or know is "banned" and the Government wants to arrest me for that or any other reason, they can just make me a criminal and off I go to jail.
 
Hey if this improves the shit show of F2P accounts and I get to play with decent gamers actually wanting to play and not cheat, boost, smurf etc. Then hell yeah, bring it on. Ban cheaters at the verified source and make verification useful for once.
 
Mithos said:
I don't want the government to have a list on what sites I verify my age.

If they could make it so.

1. The site you want to verify ON, only gets a Yes/No for the age verification and nothing else.
2. The site/place/institution that makes the verification not knowing which site/app/store I verify ON then it's "more" OK for me.

Edit: Also, not EVER going to sending a photo or using camera to film me either on the verification "place".
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I mean, I agree too but the government has all this stuff too. And they are flat out tracking you on tvs, phones, etc. We gave up privacy during 2001 in the States.
 
Imagine having an Xbox Live account since 2002 and this law still requires you to add your face/information to an off-site company to prove that you're an adult.
 
Ozzy Onya A2Z said:
Hey if this improves the shit show of F2P accounts and I get to play with decent gamers actually wanting to play and not cheat, boost, smurf etc. Then hell yeah, bring it on. Ban cheaters at the verified source and make verification useful for once.
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You know that a.) this will not ensure that and b.) do we sell ourselves that cheaply 😂?
 
Xion_Stellar said:
Imagine having an Xbox Live account since 2002 and this law still requires you to add your face/information to an off-site company to prove that you're an adult.
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You could just be a shitty parent who lets kids play on your main unrestricted account, makes sense to double check. Plenty of little squeakers running around on COD...
 
bighugeguns said:
You could just be a shitty parent who lets kids play on your main unrestricted account, makes sense to double check. Plenty of little squeakers running around on COD...
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I feel like accounts that were created at least 15 years ago should be exempted from this nonsense because even if you were a literal 5 year old when you had an account created for you would be over 20 years old by the time this law took place.

But at the end of the day this doesn't affect me over here in the United States and I don't live in a conservative state that's trying to pass online restriction laws like Utah and Texas are attempting to do so now. The taxes are rather high here in Chicago but at least the people in charge have their head screwed on straight and have other things to worry about to instead of doing something like this.
 
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I know tons of people who just let their kids use their regular adult account. What's the consequence? Dad/Mom has to scan their ID everytime their kids start gaming? But if they use regular kids account with age limit restrictions blocking 13+ games there is no scanning?
 
Mithos said:
I don't want the government to have a list on what sites I verify my age.

If they could make it so.

1. The site you want to verify ON, only gets a Yes/No for the age verification and nothing else.
2. The site/place/institution that makes the verification not knowing which site/app/store I verify ON then it's "more" OK for me.
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This is exactly how it is designed:

"The underlying architecture of age verification is double blind – the website you are accessing never knows your identity and the AV provider does not record which sites you visit."

Mithos said:
Edit: Also, not EVER going to sending a photo or using camera to film me either on the verification "place"
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Same and according to polls neither are the majority of people. People have no trust in the system even if it genuinely was completely for our kids benefit. Who knows, maybe in the future we find out they're secretly building a database for their AI monitoring systems.
 
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Mithos said:
I don't want the government to have a list on what sites I verify my age.

If they could make it so.

1. The site you want to verify ON, only gets a Yes/No for the age verification and nothing else.
2. The site/place/institution that makes the verification not knowing which site/app/store I verify ON then it's "more" OK for me.

Edit: Also, not EVER going to sending a photo or using camera to film me either on the verification "place".
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That's one of the main problems. Not only you're asked to share your photo or your ID (with the risk of someone stealing your identity), but you're also asked to share what types of sites you visit and what services you're using. Your privacy is pretty much destroyed... And you can bet that this data will be processed further and possibly used against you in the future.
 
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