This week, the hot discussion is about age verification. Remarkably, last Friday saw the enforcement of the Online Safety Bill in the United Kingdom, mandating websites to confirm the age of individuals who wish to access adult-oriented material.
Content typically deemed as mature or explicit, like pornography, falls under legal jurisdiction. However, this law extends its reach beyond such material, encompassing social media networks and communication platforms as well.
In the United Kingdom, some websites like Discord and Reddit now demand age confirmation. However, it’s possible to circumvent Discord’s age verification system by utilizing the photo mode found in the game Death Stranding.
It’s been noticed that more and more people are using VPNs these days. However, Proton VPN jokingly pointed out that this surge isn’t just because people want to watch football matches. At one instance, Proton VPN saw a staggering 1400% hourly increase in usage.
Xbox is now requiring users to confirm their age as part of its new system. Commencing from this week, individuals in the UK whose account age is 18 or above will be required to log into their Xbox accounts and authenticate their age using a validated method.
Xbox utilizes Yoti for age confirmation. Users have the option to let the system guess their age by taking a picture or they can scan an official identification document like a passport, driver’s license, or national ID card instead.
Provide either your credit card information or your mobile phone number to allow the service provider to validate that you are of legal age.
Some individuals might be cautious about providing personal details like their age due to concerns over privacy and security, even though the verification page assures both.
A better way
It appears that Microsoft is obligated to adhere to regional regulations, which means they must include age verification systems. However, I find the existing methods a bit restrictive and unnecessary in their current form.
It’s been noted by numerous Reddit users that some individuals have been using their Xbox accounts for more than twenty years. If you’ve stuck with the same Xbox account for two decades, it’s likely that you’re of an age where you can access mature content or play Xbox games online without any limitations.
Well, you might wonder, “What happens if I hand over my account to someone else?” Under such circumstances, the method employed for age confirmation would be irrelevant since that person could meet the Yoti criteria to verify their age, subsequently allowing others to utilize their account.
One of several issues with the current setup, other shortcomings being the ability to manipulate Discord using a game’s photo mode or uploading a standard driver’s license readily available online to circumvent the system employed by multiple websites.
Copying Elon Musk
This week, I found myself surprised at my own suggestion – emulating Elon Musk-like innovation. However, it seems that platform X has a potential strategy for age verification that Xbox could learn from. One of the ways X verifies age is by examining the age of an account. If an account was established prior to 2012, the system assumes the user is now an adult.
Although the method isn’t foolproof because someone might have falsified their birth year in 2012, thereby appearing younger than 18 now, it’s unlikely that a more rigorous validation process would be flawless either.
In response to a user from the UK struggling with age verification on X, Musk stated that they are actively working to resolve these issues. To put it simply, the Xbox team could emulate this approach by effectively addressing similar concerns when they arise.
In simpler terms, the boundaries that Microsoft and its Xbox team establish might not align with X’s decisions. Given that a child of five years old may have previously interacted with an Xbox, it seems reasonable to adopt distinct guidelines.
But any account old enough to legally drink in the UK should be verified automatically.
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2025-07-29 23:09