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Age checks creep into Linux as systemd gets a DOB field
(www.theregister.com)
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this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2026
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Technology
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I always thought that having some kind of "kid-safe" mode for web browsers would be a good idea; there are some people who would use that. People whose age doesn't necessarily have much to do with it. Having a standard header sent to websites to indicate it and making some rules about what they're supposed to do when they see it would be feasible enough.
It seems so painfully obvious that having a "date of birth" field in systemd is the wrong way to do things and can only go nowhere or else lead to bad things.
It should be something like date of birth and at what age are they no longer considered a minor, then its hashed and the system will only say if they are to be considered a minor or not but not give any information on the actual dates set or anything. Or like a specific number of years to countdown from instead of a date
Or just let the parents turn it on or off instead of needing it to securely hold PII... Which we know never ends well. Doubtful they'll be using the same device for their entire childhood anyway.
DOB shouldn't be collected at all. Operating systems don't need to know personal information about their users.
Yeah I guess if someone wanted to set a sort of parental control you'd just make them a user with limited control which we have already ways to do