Are we back to the video games make mass murderers thing again?

Please do not comply with this. If you really want to access services that require ID/face verification, I'd recommend checking for ways to create fake identification documents and spoof facial scans.

Yes I know this is illegal. Do what you do at your own risk.

It is possible to do that. The best solution is to simply not interact with any service that asks, but I know that's not feasible for all.

EU KIDS Act will require age verification for all online and perhaps offline games to "Create a Database for Pedophiles" to make shopping easier.

Let me ask you this: you're a 10- to 18-year-old kid, maybe younger. You live with your parents, you have some kind of game console, or perhaps a computer your parents bought for you or use themselves. One day, you tell your parents, "I want to play Grand Theft Auto."

Your parents essentially have to purchase the game for you, because a retailer isn't going to sell a mature-rated game directly to a child. If you're buying it digitally through Steam or another online store, you generally need a payment method, which again means your parents are involved in the transaction.

So what exactly is age verification at the game or operating-system level supposed to accomplish?

The purchasing process is already, by its nature, an age-gated process. If a parent is willing to purchase a mature-rated game for their child and allow that child to play it, then the parent has already made that decision. If the parent is irresponsible enough to allow their child to play violent or otherwise age-restricted games without supervision, that is a separate parenting issue. I don't see how forcing developers, publishers, distributors, or operating-system manufacturers to verify the child's age meaningfully addresses that problem.

That's what I don't understand about these laws: what is the actual benefit?

From a political perspective, I don't see an obvious constituency demanding this. I don't see how it provides a significant benefit to corporations, either. It doesn't seem particularly popular or politically consequential because the issue is so niche. So what is actually driving this?

I'm not saying there has to be some grand conspiracy behind it. But if there is a rational explanation for why governments keep pursuing increasingly complicated age-verification requirements, I'd genuinely like to understand what it is. Is this primarily about liability? Political signaling? Pressure from advocacy groups? Regulatory precedent? Or is the government simply trying to establish a broader principle that online services should be responsible for determining the age of their users?

Then there's the technological problem.

The infrastructure simply isn't designed around reliable age verification. Take operating systems as an example. A law can require an operating system to verify the age of its users, but that doesn't mean the operating system actually has reliable access to that information. Windows and macOS may be able to integrate age verification through accounts or other identity systems, but what happens on Linux? What mechanism is the operating system supposed to use to determine whether the person sitting at the keyboard is 12, 22, or 52?

And even if you solve that problem, you haven't necessarily solved the underlying problem. A child can use a parent's account, a shared computer, a friend's device, or any number of other arrangements. You can build increasingly elaborate verification systems, but ultimately you still run into the fact that parents control the devices, accounts, and purchases in the home.

So I keep coming back to the same question: what problem is this actually solving that existing parental control systems and the purchasing process don't already address?

I'm not opposed to reasonable protections for children online. I'm questioning whether mandatory age verification actually provides enough additional protection to justify the enormous technological and regulatory infrastructure required to implement it.

Because if the practical result is simply that the government requires companies to verify something that parents are already responsible for controlling, then I'm having a difficult time seeing what meaningful benefit we're getting in exchange for all of this additional regulation.

As far as I remember the german national ID already has a function to do age verification anonymous (zero-knowledge proof). have to say I am kinda okay with that solution.

A better option would to require gaming companies to moderate their servers. I’ve been reporting Nazis and trolls for 20 years and the only time anything is actually done is when its a community server.

Anything but better parenting, because this is just another excuse to mass surveillance.

Time to teach my toddler how to pirate games

GTA 6 in shambles

Are the children really the greatest risk right now? I think the bigger danger is elderly voters globally that are living on Facebook and accessing misinformation. There needs to be a ban for the gullible out of touch at the other end of the age bracket also.

But as soon as you're 18 – boom – all the fake info and conspiracy theories you've never built mental defenses for. Smart, EU, really.

I played GTA as a kid, I don’t murder that many people, don’t know what their problem is

EU is such a shit hole 😂😂😂😂

Because Trump and Epstein did all of their grooming and raping in Call of Duty servers.

Massive EU L.

As an internet user, you have to accept that at some point you'll lose access to online services you've been using if you don't become the kind of mouthbreather who verifies their identity.

Sigh. I mean, what more is there to say.