Steam now requiring age verification in the UK

Rroff said:
Other places likely aren't compliant with the letter of the act, the issue of who is actually behind the ID is another problem again and why some have been saying how bad the OSA is.
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I've only seen the ofcom guidance page, that just says you need robust age verification and here is a non-exhaustive list of what is and isn't ok (debit cards not being ok for example). So as long it's robust, it should be fine even if it's not on the list

If an email that can easily exchange hands is somehow perfectly ok, then why would account age not be ok as well? That's just as robust as "email that has been floating around for years with the possibility of changing hands" as an estimate.


ICDP said:
Yes, but the point is the age of the account is not proof of age for the person using it.

That’s like saying a learner driver must be really experienced if they drive a 15 year old Fiesta.

I’m not arguing it’s a great idea, just the logical failure to assume an account that is 20 years old must be owned or used by an adult over 18.
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Exchanging Steam accounts is against the tos, they are non transferable so they shouldn't be being transferred anyway and Valve can ban accounts if they suspect it.

But the same failure applies to literally everything else. A credit card on file isn't proof the account is actually being used by someone over 18, it proves nothing more than a card is on file. Same for any method of verification, they all fall down at "whoever verified it isn't necessarily who uses it", that's not unique to account age.
 
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Initially I thought this 18 "proof" was for any game rated 18, which I'd expect the Alien franchise games to be, looking at our library. Better half reckons this applies to Bioshock too.

But it seems this "proof" is only for sexually explicit 18 rated games.

While as I've pointed in other threads about the OSB, there's all this verification going on, while anyone can simply go into ingognito mode on Chrome and search for sexually explicit gifs.
 
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Armadillo said:
I've only seen the ofcom guidance page, that just says you need robust age verification and here is a non-exhaustive list of what is and isn't ok (debit cards not being ok for example). So as long it's robust, it should be fine even if it's not on the list

If an email that can easily exchange hands is somehow perfectly ok, then why would account age not be ok as well? That's just as robust as "email that has been floating around for years with the possibility of changing hands" as an estimate.




Exchanging Steam accounts is against the tos, they are non transferable so they shouldn't be being transferred anyway and Valve can ban accounts if they suspect it.

But the same failure applies to literally everything else. A credit card on file isn't proof the account is actually being used by someone over 18, it proves nothing more than a card is on file. Same for any method of verification, they all fall down at "whoever verified it isn't necessarily who uses it", that's not unique to account age.
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Exactly my point, claiming the age of the account is a better method of proving age than entering credit card details is just as illogical.
 
I must have had to make a new account at some point, this one's only 18 years old, but I was playing cs 1.5 long before that, and the opera hl mod, and day of defeat. So that would be about 25 years.
 
Had this pop up last night while browsing a random discovery queue which included an "Adult" title on my 21 year old Steam account. I used a debit card and a £1 shadow transaction showed on my Bank and had cleared by this morning.

So I guess I'm good now until someone decides I'm not.

Edit. Created it for a CS beta, it's almost 22!
 
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seabiscuit said:
So Steam seems to now require a credit card (some reports are saying that debit cards may work, but as these can be provided to people under 18 where a credit card can't be, not sure how long that loophole will last) to prove that users are over 18 for "mature" titles for users in the UK. Even if your Steam account is over 18 years old itself.
Bit more information here:
www.eurogamer.net

UK Steam users must now verify age to access store pages for mature games thanks to Online Safety Act

Steam users in the UK must now verify their age in order to access store pages for games with mature content, as required by the Online Safety Act.
www.eurogamer.net www.eurogamer.net
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for gods sake just got an email as did my pensioner dad the other day about game pass on the pc wanting id :(

now steam as well :(

but think of the children, and wikipedia lost a court case and will be requiring id soon ffs argghhh

hopefully steam uses common sense that an account has been active for over 20 years means the person using it is also over that age...... im so sick of this stuff angry face

surely age of account plus same payment details over that amount of time should = old enough....

any angry faces i put on peoples posts are aimed at the situation and not the users :P

oh just got it to trigger on steam, all i had to do was type in the anime sub section begining with H and bingo steam is now demanding a credit card from me.......
 
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So it looks like some of it has toned down, so for example people were reporting not being able to access Baldurs Gate 3 steam page, but that seems to be fixed. However it looks like the use a debit card has also been fixed.
Less worried now actual games (store pages) seem to be accessible again. But how long until they class "violent" games the same and block those.

seems we're in the time of double-plus ungood
 
Mercurial said:
Had this pop up last night while browsing a random discovery queue which included an "Adult" title on my 21 year old Steam account. I used a debit card and a £1 shadow transaction showed on my Bank and had cleared by this morning.

So I guess I'm good now until someone decides I'm not.

Edit. Created it for a CS beta, it's almost 22!
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It seems to come back after a couple of hours if you use a debit card, either that or Steam fixed it.

I don't really care, it's actually adult games as in porn, not just 18 games like say Doom Eternal. If they move it to those as well, they better get some more age verification methods going or a lot of people are shafted.
 
seabiscuit said:
So it looks like some of it has toned down, so for example people were reporting not being able to access Baldurs Gate 3 steam page, but that seems to be fixed. However it looks like the use a debit card has also been fixed.
Less worried now actual games (store pages) seem to be accessible again. But how long until they class "violent" games the same and block those.

seems we're in the time of double-plus ungood
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i just logged in to steam support to give them some logic as i received this right now ....

HENTAI
Under the UK Online Safety Act, Valve is required to verify that you are 18 or older before accessing mature sexual content. If you wish to do so, please add a valid UK credit card to your account and afterwards update the Mature Content Preferences.
Add a credit card to this account

so 20 odd years of debit card means nothing with the same payment details??????
 
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lets see what valve come back with i just drunkenly sent this to them :P

i dont have a credit card yet i have a history of payments spanning 20 years with paypal and my debit card

yet i get this

Under the UK Online Safety Act, Valve is required to verify that you are 18 or older before accessing mature sexual content. If you wish to do so, please add a valid UK credit card to your account and afterwards update the Mature Content Preferences.
Add a credit card to this account

i do not have a credit card and will never have one, i was content with my debit card and paypal, yet suddenly im not old enough to buy games........

care to explain how a account with consistent payments over 20 years is suddenly underage????????

should i also return my steam deck???

i am annoyyed to say the slightest, use some common sense a active account with payment details over the span of 20 years with the same payment info and im suddenly under age???????

the same is happening to my dad who is a pensioner.....

just use some common sense please.

toopp say im annpopyed is a understatment please fix this for my account, i repeat i dont belive in credit so will never have a credit card.



curious to see what the reply will be yeh i only beleive in saving up for somthing then buying it out right :)
 
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Yrkoon said:
Clipped so not a massive quote
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Bet you just get a generic response saying something along the lines of "governments fault blah blah we are just complying with their regulations" . If by some miracle you actually get verified this way, I'll do the same.

I just don't trust it to stop here. Won't be surprised to see no friends list and no invites next like Microsoft are doing.

Not advocating it (just to be clear as I don't want to get bonked), but you know what doesn't have age checks? Piracy. Already seen many comments of people saying they are going back to the old ways once spotify started it as well.
 
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Armadillo said:
Bet you just get a generic response saying something along the lines of "governments fault blah blah we are just complying with their regulations" . If by some miracle you actually get verified this way, I'll do the same.

I just don't trust it to stop here. Won't be surprised to see no friends list and no invites next like Microsoft are doing.

Not advocating it (just to be clear as I don't want to get bonked), but you know what doesn't have age checks? Piracy. Already seen many comments of people saying they are going back to the old ways once spotify started it as well.
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yeh i just signed up for 2 years of proton vpn and with that tool im starting to think thats the way forward, ill let u all know valves response :P

its like why wont you let me buy games fine other way it is if they screw me over:p
 
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It's the boiled frog effect. Lots of laws have been introduced that affect our privacy, anonymity and right to protest on the internet and in real life (not being political at all as previous governments of all stripes have done this). This is just the latest and one that affects and is noticed by a greater amount of people in their day to day business.

Tempted to quote Niemoller but won't, as that would by hyperbole for now ;)

Edit. I did the MS Gamepass ID verification thing earlier, out of curiousity more than anything. It's very painless doing it via photo directly from the MS Family site, Yoti is a UK company and you are assured the image is deleted. I also noted it could be very easily gamed as well :)
 
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Mercurial said:
It's the boiled frog effect. Lots of laws have been introduced that affect our privacy, anonymity and right to protest on the internet and in real life (not being political at all as previous governments of all stripes have done this). This is just the latest and one that affects and is noticed by a greater amount of people in their day to day business.

Tempted to quote Niemoller but won't, as that would by hyperbole for now ;)

Edit. I did the MS Gamepass ID verification thing earlier, out of curiousity more than anything. It's very painless doing it via photo directly from the MS Family site, Yoti is a UK company and you are assured the image is deleted. I also noted it could be very easily gamed as well :)
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so at some point ur image will get `leaked :(
 
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I will literally pirate games before I give my personal details on this level, not that I have the time to play much these days. If I can't buy them legally I can't access them at all, period, and I will not adhere to the dystopian hellscape being forced upon the UK.

This is not helping kids, it's massive Government oversight that nobody sane asked for to solve a problem that didn't exist in the ways they claim. There are very, very blatant problems that this will not help whatsoever in terms of child safety that they turn a blind eye to and have for over literal decades. The same government that decided not to investigate grooming gangs and all sorts of other awful things while claiming it was to the benefit of the victims.
 
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