Good morning, Brit Xbox fans – ready to prove your age? Microsoft has begun emailing users of its Xbox gaming platform with likely unwelcome news: users will need to verify their age if they want to keep access to the company's various social services, and it's blaming the UK Online Safety Act. Woman in suit peers through privacy hole in someone's front door End well, this won't: …
I'm over 3x the age restriction but this sounds perfect to me.
"Those who choose not to verify their age, Microsoft has confirmed, will retain access to their existing games and other media as well as the ability to buy more – including age-restricted titles. It's the social side of gaming that will be locked off: voice and text chat, party functionality and game invites, and the ability to share user-generated content will be limited to "Xbox friends" only, while the "Looking for Group" and custom club features will be blocked off entirely."
I'm somewhat sceptical that the children will be saved seeing as how I got one without being in the UK and having no connection to the UK service.
If they can't figure out geographical location, their age verification is not very likely to fare much better.
"I've had an Xbox account for over 20 years"
Such utter incompetence.
Last year, or maybe the year before, Google started pushing for some form of proof of age for one of my shadow accounts. If I failed to supply, it would assume I'm under 13 and act accordingly. Since there's exactly zero chance I'm going to hand over a scan of my ID to Google, I just left it.
My main account, that was tied to my phone (for Play store and all the rest) was set up in 2008. They didn't bother asking for ID because that account has been active for longer than the required age. It's a rather more sensible thing than just spamming everybody for ID.
...Microsoft has confirmed, will retain access to their existing games and other media as well as the ability to buy more – including age-restricted titles. It's the social side of gaming that will be locked off: voice and text chat, party functionality and game invites, and the ability to share user-generated content
Not that I approve of this stupid law, but honestly, that outcome seems kinda better to me based on my more recent experiences with online gaming. No user (read "AI") generated content (read "advertising")? Not being able to interact with anyone but still being able to play the games I own in peace? Seems kinda like a win.
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It's the social side of gaming that will be locked off: voice and text chat, party functionality and game invites, and the ability to share user-generated content will be limited to "Xbox friends" only, while the "Looking for Group" and custom club features will be blocked off entirely.
And nothing of value was lost!
Beyond that: I don't know exactly when I created my XBL account, but it was probably around 2008 when I bought an Xbox 360. And that's linked to a Microsoft Outlook account which goes back to the late 90s.
I'm guessing they won't be applying this sort of logic to their checks, though.
The logic behind the checks is simple, the discussion went something like this: If we don't require them to jump through these hoops when the account itself is already old enough then we won't be able to sell the personal data they're not forced to give us. Why did we have this meeting for such a stupid question? Go speak to HR.
Age verification is an early Christmas gift for scammers. Until one of the big verification services gets hacked, they will continue with this ID scraping farce, despite having ISP adult content blocks for years and mobile blocks too. This will create another huge pile of pissed off Brits that hate the government enough to not vote for them or vote against them.
Given the threat from Reform, you would think that Labour would avoid doing anything to annoy substantial chunks of the population, but they have done just that, over and over again, since they were dumped into power by Tory failure. The level of political nous in the two main parties must have hit a historic low over the last decade. They couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery without it going £50m over budget, having no beer, and losing them half a million votes.
I'm not bothering. I'm just going to opt out of any service that requires age verification. I no longer care enough to even dodge it. This country has no future. Screw it. I'm just going to sit back and watch it fail.
The level of political nous in the two main parties must have hit a historic low over the last decade. They couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery without it going £50m over budget, having no beer, and losing them half a million votes.
But anyone who thinks Reform is the answer either hasn't seen how bad they are or are wilfully ignoring the evidence. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Reform's cabinet member for economic development and asset management for Nottinghamshire county council.
I'm having trouble understanding why chatting to other people in a multiplayer game or related activities automatically counts as adult content. This means one of two things:
1. You're right, it doesn't, and this is Microsoft lying.
2. Microsoft also didn't think this counted and got notified that someone who has the opportunity to make things annoying did and was going to require this.
Given how many stories I've already seen of the Online Safety Act applying to things where no logical link exists between them and what the act ostensibly is there to block, option 2 seems the more likely to me. If you have a law that can apply to random things on a whim and has penalties for noncompliance, expect that lots of people will have to add the blocks at a moment's notice when their unrelated services are suddenly deemed covered.
Early 2026 doesn't look like a moments notice to me. Maybe microsoft themselves have identified the risk that it may be deemed to fall under the act in the future, and are implementing the changes at their own pace hoping it won't happen in the meantime.
Exactly.
If this is actually required by the law, then Microsoft have broken the law and must be fined 10% of their worldwide revenue.
If this is not required, then Microsoft are breaking the law by requiring it, and must be fined 10% of their worldwide revenue.
Either way - rejoice, the UK's financial hole is filled, and taxes can be cut!
Should the UK threaten MS with massive fines, MS turns off every license in the UK, as revenues from the UK are less than 10% of worldwide. No more cash from the UK. No more data from the UK. Entire govt depts stop working as they're dependent on Office, Active Directory, Azure, etc. UK gov backs down, crawls to MS,. Sad Nad puts a 10% surcharge on the prices of all MS products in the UK, retroactive for a year on stuff sold to uk.gov, payable in 30 days or everything goes dark again. Apple and Google see an opportunity and only add a 5% surcharge. Oracle goes nuts, adds a 25% surcharge. Charley Third heaves senior Labour brass into the Tower, takes personal control; he can't possibly do worse.
The benefits of reading to the end...
It's the social side of gaming that will be locked off: voice and text chat, party functionality and game invites, and the ability to share user-generated content will be limited to "Xbox friends" only, while the "Looking for Group" and custom club features will be blocked off entirely.
oh, marvellous... nothing to worry about then.
Just curious:
Seeing as the feckers link MS Flightsim on a PC to an Xbox account, does that mean UK flightsimmers *on PC* now have to go through that rigmarole?
(I tried without and the fecking feckers tie your logbook to that bloody account. I lost years of flights when I switched to a new install on a new machine. I learned the hard way and now use external tools)
My kids' accounts are part of the family accounts and I reguarly have to sign on to reset their password or approve their login, purely because Microsoft has detected something 'irregular' with their account (nothing other than logging in seems to be the trigger). Then when one turned 13 I got an email explaining that they were now an adult and got to make a number of their own choices that were none of my business.
Now, as the parent, if I don't age-verify, does that mean my kids have more rights, less rights, or the same rights as I do?
Seems to be a certain amount of mission creep on Microsoft accounts, not that I'm surprised. Mixture of incompetence and planning, probably.
"When I were a lad" it was considered a sport of sorts among some of us to bypass the web filters at school. Even some of the ones that were regarded as very effective at the time could by bypassed with effort and research. Free online proxy servers were a favourite, and a bit of cat-and-mouse ensued as those also started getting blocked by the school IT admin.
Hardly a surprise that younger generations are doing exactly the same with the age verification crap.
When I were a lad my school had exactly one Commodore PET, (which was already several years old by then) and one year we had one hour a week where 30 kids were taught 'computing'. I really wonder how I ever ended up with a career in IT, probably entirely due to the home computer revolution.
