As you may be aware or unaware, the UK has implemented an Online Safety Act, which has put the legal responsibility onto social companies, search engines and other online platforms to protect users, more so, children or those who are vulnerable to harmful and illegal content. Whilst I understand why the law has been brought in with more harmful content being pushed out onto the internet nowadays, I do also get that the UK people feel massively restricted in what they can and cannot do.
Microsoft is now set to comply with the UK law and are prompting Xbox players to verify their ages today. The prompts will be shown to those Xbox players who indicate they are over the age of 18, and they will be shown when they sign in to any Xbox account in the UK. Along with this, Microsoft have also commented, saying that they are exploring the option of bringing this to other countries in the future upon discussions.
To bring this oh so wonderful age verification to the people of the UK, Microsoft is partnering with Yoti, which is one of the services which hasn’t yet fallen victim to the Death Stranding photo mode bypass. Poor Norman Reedus, he isn’t ever passing age detection with all those Death Stranding photos. Whilst age verification checks are very much optional right now, they will be in full roll out across a variety of Xbox services coming early 2026. This is when additional parts of the UK’s Online Safety Act will take full effect.
Vice president of gaming trust and safety at Xbox, Kim Kunes, has recently commented about this coming into play, and said “Starting early next year (2026), age verification will be required for these players in the UK to retain full access to social features on Xbox, such as voice or text communication and game invites.” If the age verification process remains uncompleted from now to next year, communication will be limited to friends only until completion, which in essence isn’t a bad outcome but no more screaming down the mic in COD lobbies am I right?
Kunes carried over to then say, “Whether a player verifies their age will not affect any previous purchases, entitlements, gameplay history, achievements or the ability to play and purchase games. However, we encourage players to verify their age via this one-time process now to avoid uninterrupted use of social features on Xbox in the future.” This is a pretty big thing for players who reside in the UK, as this comes from the Online Safety Act being put into place recently. My current understanding is that Xbox will still allow those who haven’t verified to still play those 18+ titles. However, this could easily be subject to change.
Whilst this is only at the moment limited to the gracious people of the UK, Kunes has also said “We expect to roll out age verification processes to more regions in the future,” and while Microsoft are remaining tight-lipped as to which regions these are, Kunes continued to say, “these methods may look different across regions and experiences.” This tells me that there is some solid work coming to more than just the UK when it comes to age verification, and this will mean no more throwing around loose lipped comments to random people in gaming lobbies. This could easily be seen as a hindrance to freedom of speech. However, I get why this is being implemented, as those younger folks shouldn’t be seeing nor hearing negative content out there on the big bad internet.
If you are one of those UK players, the way to verify yourself for Xbox is, you head over to Microsoft online, where you can then upload a selfie, a scan of your passport or driver’s license, a credit card check or even your mobile number. Get yourself verified unless you don’t mind just speaking to your friends in a party chat! With age verification looming, I can easily see numerous ways around this, unless Microsoft has thought about everything. With Discord being a feature on the Xbox now, surely this will be a workaround. Unless you are still in a smaller community, then this will still not matter too much.
What do you guys think about this? Do you think that this is a good move by Xbox to keep in line with UK laws? Or is this just another way to limit freedom of expression? Let us know in the comments below!
