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Microsoft is developing an age-awareness API for Windows 11 to satisfy the age-rating verification mandates emerging across various countries and states. At its heart, Microsoft itself gathers the user’s information, while other applications simply request an age bracket from Microsoft. Consequently, users need not surrender an ID card, driver’s license, or passport, nor expose their birthday to a multitude of apps.
Why Offer an Age-Awareness API?
Currently, several U.S. states are tightening their oversight of age verification. In practice, this means applications or websites must serve tiered content according to a user’s age. Remarkably, even Linux was once swept into such a requirement. However, the demand proved so absurd that Linux ultimately won an exemption and escaped the obligation altogether.
The states in question chiefly point to California. Its law compels operating system providers to collect a user’s birth month and year, or age bracket, during device setup or new account creation. Thereafter, the system relays that age-bracket signal to applications and app stores, which in turn apply their own content ratings.
Microsoft’s age-awareness API therefore serves to meet these legal demands. Essentially, it furnishes age verification at the operating system level and then passes the bracket to any application that calls for it. Naturally, Microsoft shares only basic signals. It never hands sensitive details, such as an exact birthday, to third parties. Microsoft describes the broader effort in its announcement on supporting safer experiences for families and educators.
The Age Brackets Microsoft Defines
Microsoft sorts users into five distinct groups:
- Under 10
- 10 to 12
- 13 to 15
- 16 to 17
- 18 and above
Verify Once, Let Other Apps Read the Result
After a user completes age verification, the resulting status becomes linked to their Microsoft online account. Supported applications can then simply query that verified result from the Microsoft account. As a result, they no longer force users to fill in their details and verify all over again.
Microsoft believes this platform-level scheme lets apps automatically tailor features for minors. For example, they might restrict certain content, impose stricter privacy settings, or enable age protections. Simultaneously, the approach reduces the need for each app to gather personal data such as birthdays independently.
As for how an application handles tiered content once it receives the age signal, that decision rests entirely with the developer. Consider a country that bars users under 16 from social networking sites. Upon reading a bracket of “under 15,” the app can straightaway decline the user’s registration.
Furthermore, Microsoft is preparing a check-age-status feature. This capability classifies users as children, minors, or adults according to the differing legal rules of each region. The relevant interface, however, will require a Windows 11 update to function, and for now the feature has not yet gone live.
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