Citing concerns around player safety, Xbox now expects to expand its age verification compliance obligations with the UK government to other regions in the future. A UK law, known as the Online Safety Act, came into effect this week, requiring UK citizens to verify their age with photo proof when accessing online content that has the potential to harm children. Players in the UK who fail to comply with a specific deadline for Xbox’s version of their ID system will have certain social features restricted in the future.
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On Monday, Xbox announced the rollout of its age verification service for the UK, which requires users who claim to be 18 or older to post a government-issued ID, mobile provider confirmation, credit card check, or a selfie that passes AI-enabled age verification analysis.
“Players who indicate their account age as 18 and over, based in the UK, and signing into an Xbox experience with a Microsoft account will begin seeing notifications encouraging them to verify their age,” said a July 28th Xbox Wire post. “This one-time process for players in the UK ensures we can continue to provide all players on our platform with age-appropriate experiences.”
While the initial verification rollout remains optional, it will become mandatory starting in early 2026. Anyone claiming to be at least 18 years old who has not completed the verification process will lose full access to social features, including voice chat, text communication, and the ability to send and receive game invites. Xbox stresses that players will still be able to play their games, but will be more limited in the people they can interact with.
“Players who don’t verify their age between now and early 2026 can continue to play and enjoy Xbox,” said the Xbox Wire post. “However, starting early next year, their use of social features on Xbox will become limited to friends only until they complete the age verification process. Whether a player verifies their age will not affect any previous purchases, entitlements, gameplay history, achievements, or the ability to play and purchase games.”
While some are supportive of the attempt to protect children from dangerous online content, there have also been vocal opponents of the law who are concerned about player privacy and the implications of tying gaming experiences to a government ID or selfie picture.
In the wake of the law’s implementation, a petition called the “Repeal the Online Safety Act” skyrocketed to over 400,000 signatures and quickly received an official government response that rebuffed the petition’s demands.
“The Government has no plans to repeal the Online Safety Act, and is working closely with Ofcom to implement the Act as quickly and effectively as possible to enable UK users to benefit from its protections,” said a statement from the UK government.
However, now that the ball is already rolling, even repealing the law doesn’t change the decision-making of companies like Microsoft, which have already committed investments in these systems. Xbox has already stated that similar verification measures are expected to be rolled out to “regions in the future,” but didn’t specify which ones or when the rollouts will take effect. It’s very possible that we are headed to a new norm of verifying one’s identity before being allowed to access game features across the world.
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