Age verification is the trending topic of the week. Last Friday, the UK's Online Safety Act went into effect, requiring websites to verify the age of anyone hoping to look at adult content.
While the law covers content most people would consider "adult," such as pornography, it also affects social media services and communication platforms.
Discord and Reddit are among the many sites that now require age verification if you're in the UK, though the former's system can be bypassed by using the photo mode in Death Stranding.
VPN usage is also on the rise. Proton VPN playfully suggested that the spike is not due to people trying to watch football. At one point, Proton VPN observed a 1400% hourly increase.
Xbox is also rolling out a system for users to verify their ages. Starting this week, Xbox users who have their age set to 18 or over in the UK need to sign in to their Xbox profiles and verify their age with an approved method.
Xbox relies on Yoti for age verification. Users can either take a photo for the system to estimate their age or scan a government-issued ID such as a passport, driver's license, or national ID.
- Age verification: https://aka.ms/XboxUKAgeVerification
You can also verify your age by entering your credit card details or by entering your mobile phone number and having your provider confirm you are an adult.
The page to verify your age emphasizes privacy and security, but some people are hesitant to share such information.
A better way
I understand that Microsoft needs to comply with local laws, so the tech giant has to implement age verification. But the current options feel unnecessarily limited.
As highlighted by several Reddit users, many people have Xbox accounts that are over 20 years old. If you've used the same Xbox account for two decades, you are presumably old enough to view adult content or play Xbox games online without any restrictions.
"But what if you give your account to someone else?" you may ask. In that case, it wouldn't matter which method you used for age verification, because someone could pass the Yoti requirements to confirm their age and then let anyone else use their account.
It’s one of several flaws in the system. Others include the fact that you can trick Discord with a game’s photo mode or upload a generic driver’s license found on Google to bypass the system used by several sites.
Copying Elon Musk
I didn't expect myself to suggest emulating Elon Musk this week, but X has a possible solution for age verification that Xbox should copy. One of the ways X verifies age is checking the age of an account. If an account was created before 2012, the site assumes you're an adult now.
It's not a perfect solution, since someone could have lied about their age back in 2012 and still be under 18 today. But I doubt any reasonable verification method will be perfect.
X has run into some issues with age verification, which Musk says are being addressed. "We are working on this," said Musk in a post replying to a UK user who cannot verify their age on X. The Xbox team may want to copy Musk's general idea but execute it better.
Where Microsoft and the Xbox team draw their line could be different than what X decided. Since a five-year-old is more likely to have played Xbox in the past, it's probably worth having different rules.
But any account old enough to legally drink in the UK should be verified automatically.
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