77
Age checks creep into Linux as systemd gets a DOB field (www.theregister.com)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/technology@beehaw.org
54 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Just what I want in my distro.

After weeks of debate, code to record user age was finally merged into the Linux world's favorite system management daemon.

Pull request #40954 to the systemd project is titled "userdb: add birthDate field to JSON user records." It's a new function for the existing userdb service, which adds a field to hold the user's date of birth:

Stores the user's birth date for age verification, as required by recent laws in California (AB-1043), Colorado (SB26-051), Brazil (Lei 15.211/2025), etc.

The contents of the field will be protected from modification except by users with root privileges.

The change comes after the recent release of systemd 260 but unless it is reverted for some reason, it will be part of systemd 261. One of the justifications is to facilitate the new parental controls in Flatpak, which are still in the draft stage.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 4 points 7 months ago

If we accept the premise

Let's not. They're doing this backwards. If this were actually for the children, identification happens by the content, with the filters set locally.

Not BROADCASTING TO THE ENTIRE INTERNET that a child is browsing.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent