https://piefed.zip/u/other_cat posted on Mar 20, 2026 13:26
The optional birthDate field gives other projects a standardized data source for age verification compliance.
The optional birthDate field gives other projects a standardized data source for age verification compliance.
How to get age verification into linux? Easy, just tell Poettering that if he doesn’t hurry up and do it first, some non-systemd approach might become the standard.
Of all terrible proposals coming up in this period, I’m still more-or-less ok with this system because the administrator is still in full control to set whatever date they want, and the field is entirely optional.
They call it “age verification” in the aricle, but there’s no 3rd party “verification” whatsoever. It’s just a field for the user birth date saved in the user metadata. This is IMHO acceptable because it doesn’t force anybody to provide IDs or personal information to some random shady company.
I think calling it “age verification” is a bit confusing and will make people unhappy by default, but might be a smart move to make it compliant with the new laws coming out in this period (the user age was “verified” by the system administrator, after all).
Whatever the old farts will come with their stupid laws, SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKERS, it’s Linux. It’s always a sudo away from doing (or not) exactly what you (don’t) want. I know. This is beyond their comprehension. Adding a field here is ok to me. Because if it ends up being used:
The only thing that will hurt from this are companies in CA, CO and wherever.
The average Linux user will not give a single fuck. I know I don’t.
its age attestation, not age verification (saying it vs proving it). also, dont give systemd shit about this bc they are just covering their asses in case more restrictive laws go through.
They don’t call the systemd change “age verification” in the article.
In fact, they specifically make the point that it isn’t.
And in a twisted way, this may be good. For instance, Microslop will probably spent millions to please their pedos overlords. They will require PC vendors to add cryptographic chips to ensure you cannot change your age, that has been verified after a background check required to buy Windows… We all know how product managers think (if you don’t you’re lucky, stay the fuck away)
The probable result: more and more people will switch to Linux, where they can be a 3000y old tree.
I like the idea of a system add-on that randomizes all user age responses with a different date that equals like 25-99years old (assuming 25 years meets the highest age for the applicable standards).
Not too dissimilar from a random MAC address generating feature.
Yep. Its honestly mild as hell.
Essentially legislation that says: - app stores have to have age categories to silo children, teens, and adults. - OSes have to have a field to collect this data from users when they set up their login, so it can be sent to app stores via API.
Its just a standardized system that should have been done ages ago, but was not a priority for standards orgs, so none stepped up - so legislation appeared.
I strongly argue that it should only apply to commercial OSes and app stores though - as they’re the ones that primarily cause issues these laws intent to address.
Linux and FOSS have been caught in the crossfire in a privacy and personal data battle they were not involved in.
There’s the first article!
Should this strategy become an RFC?
And really, when was the last time some megacorp tried to access userdb on any machine?
This isn’t age verification. It’s just adding the field into the user record so it can be used if your distro decides to collect that information.
They’re not even really covering their asses. They don’t make an OS, they make a small but important art of many distros. They’re providing a clean, standardized way for Linux distros from RedHat to Ageless to comply with the law if the choose to. Some distros will comply with the law to the letter, others will not comply out of spite. At least the ones that comply will do it in a standard way.
Good points. It’s like websites with an age-gate: technically they’re trying to keep out users under a certain age (usually minors), but there’s no verification.
But we all need to remember that “protecting the children” and clutching our pearls is still not a good reason to let world governments and giant corporations create laws, demand our papers, keep massive databases of our data, and tie our real-world identities to our online ones. It would be the end of anonymity online, it *will* get hacked, and they will use it for evil…
It’s not a feature, it’s a bug.
They do use it in the title though (the title on this post was auto-generated from the article, I didn’t pick it out.)
I agree with OP, it’s not really age verification in the sense we’ve been seeing in the news, but it IS a step in the direction of following the letter of the law without intrusiveness.
I agree with you, however I don’t agree with how I’m certain it’s going to be used.
It will be used to gather demographic data and help fingerprint uses/devices. It’s widespread adoption will cause it to become nearly mandatory to use the mainstream internet.
A lot of people born January the first, 1970.
If, and I do stress if applications require it filled out, there are simply going to be an awful lot of epoch birthdates in their data. And frankly a lot of people, myself included, who will step up and write replacements to these applications in order to give a giant middle finger to authoritarian governments/companies as a result.
It’s very mild this, and as it has no ‘verification’, it’s just a meaningless string of numbers.
The legislation is entirely to allow Facebook to get away with harming minors, so I wouldn’t call it mild in any sense of the word.
ohh now theyve gone and done it.
normies are gonna start hating on systremd for this. which will upset the og systemd haters for hating systemd for the wrong reasons, thereby frustrating the og systemd haters and helping them achieve new yet unmet levels of hate for systemd.
just a guess
I disagree. While I totally understand that it is an optional feature that can enabled and enforced only by others, I am not happy that the developers of systemd rushed to include it into the JSON file with the user info. I would expect the developers to be a bit more resistant to requests by two US states and Brazil. Why are they making it so easy? I guess we will see a resurgence of systemd-free dirstros.
Ahh, another Epoch traveler
Yes. I also hate feeling confused about where my hatred for SystemD firsts into the bigger picture
With that I wish to share this with everyone https://agelesslinux.org/
4 US states. California, New York, Colorado, and Illinois. The blue hats REALLY want to know whose using the device.
The title says it is bringing the option for age verification, not that it is age verification.
Good point, I stand corrected.
I started my Linux journey with PCLOS, then switched to Fedora, because I wanted to try Gnome, and have been using it for more than 20 years. Looks like I may need to switch back to PCLOS, since it does not use systemd, while also finding myself a new DE.
Currently, openKylinOS does not use systemd nor require age verification, so I might give it a go. I doubt China will give a rat’s ass about California law. It also integrates with some versions Deep Seek, though I tend to be an AI Luddite.
Anyone heard from Linus Torvalds on the topic?
I think we should start calling this age attestation rather than verification, or does the confusion help us here by making the linux ecosystem seem like it’s more compliant than it is?
Not to my knowledge. Granted all I did was a 1 second kagi search so there might be something floating out there. I do feel like if he made some kind of official statement, it’d be pretty big news though.