Tag: AGEVERIFICATION
California’s OS-based age verification law challenges open-source community
California’s new online safety bill, AB 1043 (the Digital Age Assurance Act), adopts a declared age model for operating systems. Under the law, which is set to take effect on January 1, 2027, when a user sets up a new device, the operating system is required to ask for their age or date of birth. This declared age will be used to curate what’s available on the app store, and can be shared with developers on request to ensure age-appropriate experiences.
An article in PC Gamer points out that this “sounds incompatible with many of today’s open source software, including Linux.” The open source community is wrestling with the problem of how to comply with the laws while also not violating core privacy principles.
The piece muses on technical solutions, quoting Jef Spaleta, project leader for popular Linux distribution, The Fedora Project, who says “this might be as simple as extending how we currently map uid to usernames and group membership and having a new file in /etc/ that keeps up with age.”
Or, “it might be as simple as that and we extend the administrative cli and gui tools to populate that file as part of account creation. That might be simplest and it solves the problem for the full ecosystem of Linux OSes. Then applications just have to start choosing to look at the file.” To Spaleta, this suggests a D-Bus Service, which allows communication between programs.
Ubuntu, another Linux distribution, is also unsure of how to respond, and says it is consulting with its lawyers before making a plan.
California age law does not compute with DB48X
The point is, in putting the onus on operating systems to collect age data, AB 1043 is causing headaches for open source nerds. Both California’s bill and a like-minded bill in Colorado, SB26-051, have drawn the ire of the creators of an open source calculator, DB48X, described as “a project to rebuild and improve upon the ‘legendary’ HP48 family of calculators and RPL programming language, and for modding newer calculators to utilise it.”
Rather than comply, DB48X has opted to restrict access for Californians and Coloradans when (and, in Colorado’s case, if) their laws come into effect. A legal-notice file for the project says “DB48X is probably an operating system under these laws. However, it does not, cannot and will not implement age verification.”
Per PC Gamer, “you know you’ve messed up when you’ve angered the math lot.”
The calculator guys are not alone. Ground News has a roundup of articles expressing variations of grievance. WebProNews says California’s law “forces a surveillance mandate on every developer – including those who can’t comply.” The Daily Economy says “California is embedding age verification directly into digital devices. For those of us concerned with personal liberties, this is an emergency.”
No verification required, actually
PC Gamer also notes the challenges of enforcing a law that means “the job of checking whether people have installed its OS falls onto Californian authorities to deal with.”
“Both Californian and Coloradan bills set out civil fines of $2,500 for unintentional breaches and $7,500 for intentional breaches, but how would the majority of breaches be discovered in the first place?”
Another criticism asks why California does not specify what level or extent of age verification it requires. If it’s just a date of birth, Spaleta says, “a simple dropdown interface may suffice,” meaning “the effectiveness of such a system appears to be based on an honour system.” Self-declaration at the root negates the entire process; this would-be age verification law, in fact, does not mandate age verification at all. Technically, it’s not even age assurance.
California’s law is less than a year away from taking effect, and Colorado’s bill (which more properly labels its goal “age attestation”), if passed, would take effect January 1, 2028. Ironically, the piece ends up lamenting the speed at which new technology is becoming normalized: the laws, it says, are “coming at a time when age verification is being rolled out more widely across the globe and facing stern criticism, such as an open letter from scientists and researchers that notes the many pitfalls of ill-thought-out verification methods.”
The letter in question has provided a common reference for those opposed to age assurance laws and technologies for various reasons. The open source community now joins social media tycoons, privacy advocates and pornographers in opposing such laws, which they say are invasive and dangerous – but which lawmakers insist parents are asking for, as they work to find the right legal model.
Free Tool Says it Can Bypass Discord’s Age Verification Check With a 3D Model
The tool presents users with a 3D model they can then manipulate to, the creator says, bypass Discord’s age verification system.
Discord offers clarification on age assurance as users search for alternatives
Discord needs to clear the air about its age assurance update. Having triggered a wave of consternation among its users following the announcement of new age assurance requirements, the messaging app with 200 million users has posted a blog to let everyone know, loud and clear, that it is not requiring all of them to complete a face scan or upload an ID.
“You need to be an adult to access age-restricted experiences such as age-restricted servers and channels or to modify certain safety settings,” says the post. “The majority of Discord users don’t access age restricted content and will never go through a facial age estimation flow or ID verification.”
More specific language says age checks may be required to unblur media flagged by Discord’s sensitive content filters, to turn off any of the default sensitive content filter settings or the Message Requests feature, speak in a stage channel, or toggle the age-restricted commands setting.
The platform’s second statement in two days suggests it has seen the data, reported by Windows Central, showing a 10,000 percent spike in searches for “Discord alternatives” in the U.S. over the past 48 hours, with messaging platforms Stoat, Matrix and Mumble all authoritatively entering the chat.
Age inference system will automate access for most users
Discord says it will be able to confirm an age group for most users based on what it already knows. “We use age prediction to determine, with high confidence, when a user is an adult,” it says. “This allows many adults to access age-appropriate features without completing an explicit age check.” This system, which as described functions similar to the algorithmic age inference Google has dabbled in for YouTube, is an answer to the accusation that Discord is treating all of its users like children.
When the inference system isn’t enough, the process for follow-up confirmation, and its privacy promises, are familiar territory for biometrics and age assurance observers: facial age estimation (FAE) or document-based age verification. “Facial scans never leave your device. Discord and our vendor partners never receive it. IDs are used to get your age only and then deleted. Discord only receives your age – that’s it. Your identity is never associated with your account.”
The final note is further evidence of an emerging pain point in age assurance adoption: the conflation of age verification with identity verification. It underlines the privacy-preserving approach of its age check options, which, depending on jurisdiction, work through vendors including Persona and k-ID.
“We are partnering with dedicated age assurance vendors who specialize in performing these verifications in a privacy-forward way,” it says. “These vendors were not involved in the September 2025 data breach of our customer service agent.”
However, the statement also raises fresh questions, namely about the so-called “age prediction” system that Discord describes. A FAQ says the system uses an “advanced machine learning model developed at Discord to predict whether a user falls into a particular age group based on patterns of user behavior and several other signals associated with their account on Discord.
“For many adult users, this means access to age‑restricted content and features without needing to complete an explicit age verification flow.” The platform acknowledges “this isn’t always perfect,” but says “we’ve tuned the model to be highly accurate. We only use these signals to assign users to an age group when our confidence level is high.” If a user is placed into the wrong age group, they can perform active age estimation or age verification.
“We do not use your message content in the age estimation model.”
Ultimately, Discord asks users to have faith in its system
The final statement of assurance answers one of the major questions likely to arise among wary Discord users: are you spying on me to guess my age? Discord says no. However, that amounts to self-attestation on Discord’s part, and makes trust a matter of faith that whatever signals the platform is using to infer age remain secure and will not be misused.
In its defense, Discord says it intends to keep working on the problem. “In the months ahead, we’ll be introducing additional safety features and updates as part of our broader commitment to teen safety and wellbeing on Discord. Building a safer Discord takes continual and collaborative effort.”
Discord’s age verification mandate is a leap toward a gated internet
Discord is about to force some of the people who use its messaging app to make a choice: Use the platform with restricted features, or prove their age. It’s a move that platforms have been slowly approaching, but Discord’s teen-by-default rollout is a stronger clampdown that could offer a glimpse at an age-gated future on […]
