Certain League of Legends Accounts Will Soon Require Parental Permission

Riot Games will soon be looking to get parental permission for certain League of Legends accounts in response to recent legislation passed in Europe.

If you're not a player who lives in Europe or if you are and are over the age of 16, you've got nothing to worry about. But for the many players who are in Europe and those who may be playing during their earlier teen years, you'll start seeing some notifications coming your way now as a result of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The GDPR deals with privacy laws that are targeted towards those in the European Union and require that companies "add new processes and security to better protect your information," according to Riot Games' announcement.

"One of the ways GDPR seeks to better protect personal data is increasing the minimum age of consent to process personal data to 16 years old in many EU member states" Riot Ruin3d said in the announcement. "It also allows member states to pass local laws to set the age of consent at a lower age -- which some have done -- as long as it isn't lower than 13 years old. To help ensure we're addressing these changes, we're verifying that players are of the legal age (for their countries) by asking for parental permission first."

Riot then reminded players that those outside the EU or within the region and above the age of 16 won't have anything to worry about. If you're within those parameters though, you'll be getting requests for parental permission to keep your account active. Those who don't respond within a certain timeframe will have their accounts locked.

"After May 25th, we'll need to suspend accounts for players who fall under the legally required age for their region until parental permission is received. If your account is one of those requiring parental permission, you will receive in-client warnings about a week before the changes go live. You will be directed to a website to unlock your account once that is available. If you are not impacted, you won't see the notification and don't need to take any further action."

The age of eligibility does differ between the countries in Europe though, so you'll want to make sure that you know what your country's age requirement is by checking Riot's article here. Riot also answers many more questions about the parental permission situation that are also seen through the post.