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this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2026
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The way this is written, it would just be a case of entering your age or DOB at account creation, which wouldn't be so bad. Indeed, this would be the kind of parent-empowering solution I'd like to see, since it kind of assumes the admin of a device (who sets up user accounts) is an adult who will enter the correct info for their kids.
Of course, there's always the concern they might try to push for adding 3rd party age attestation after the fact, with this being the thin end of the wedge. And it'd be a bit of a pain for the various linux distros to organise a compliant solution even IF it's just adding a new parameter to useradd and the associated "age signal" API for applications to query.
I'd just add an environment variable.
Nothing more required.
I suspect something the nonprivileged user can effortlessly change would be deemed insufficient. :P
The user needs to tell the system what their age is, so if I get up and a 15yo sits on the computer, they need to change the environment variable before starting any program.
No need for higher privs.
In every OS I know of including linux, you need admin/su rights to create a user account. If the age is tied to the account that at least prevents tampering without admin/su access.
But does the law require that?
From the interpretations I have seen, it doesn't even require real verification, just a way to tell the app, the age of the user.
Honestly I'm not sure. I feel like I'd want that as a parent tho, personally.
So as a parent, you want every person on planet Earth, making a software, to bear the burden of making sure your child cannot use their software without your consent?
You already have the option to buy something with parental controls.
You can also pay someone to add a parental control feature into an Open Source OS and install it for you.
But you'd rather use the politician?
Honestly, no. I'm aware there are other options. But if the govt is mandating something, I'd rather it made sense. Demanding everyone set an env var is nonsense.
I'd rather the govt. not go around mandating stuff that only empowers those who want to use it as an excuse for mass-AI-voyeurism.
Sadly I don't think that's on the cards. :(
I will object when this BS heads out my way eventually, of course. But if some law gets passed requiring the OS to be able to tell programs the age of the user, I would vastly prefer it just be something set by the sysadmin at account creation, and that the user not be able to change it themself. That last part mainly because if the user can change it themself, even braindead politicians will realise it is not doing anything and they will legislate something else. Probably something worse.
I'm pretty sure that won't be the case.
Their real intent won't be to enforce it on self-installable systems, but more like, to enable companies to make that thing mandatory on systems that they sell.
And since the companies want to do so, they will use it to create a "verification" system that helps them feed people's everyday face data to AI, to enable doing studies on people's face changes depending upon various stimuli that said companies will be collectively applying to those people.
e.g.
This is corresponding to PayPal et al. starting with requiring a selfie to "verify" that it's you.
Well guess what happens when one of those AI companies gets an order from someone that wants to systematically frame you for paying for something illegal via PayPal? They get the highest quality AI selfie generated such that even your mother won't know it isn't you.
Oh and don't go on saying they won't want to do that. Cell Phone service providers will make fake claims of their customers having activated VAS, just for a few extra pennies a month (this is already happening, even without AI).
Yeah okay.
Didn't know paypal were doing that…