Xbox users to be required to verify age under new Online Safety Act

It's the latest service to require ID verification

The act was brought into force last month and has faced plenty of backlash since as age verification spreads from adult sites to things as menial as Spotify.

In the wake of the act coming into force, a petition to repeal the Online Safety Act has amassed over 500,000 signatures.

People have been finding that many online sites are now requiring users to verify their age before accessing content.

The age block is set to be rolled out to sites including Spotify, Wikipedia and now Xbox.

Yep, that's right, soon you'll need to confirm your age to use Xbox's social features.

On their website, Xbox wrote: "We frequently iterate on these safety measures in collaboration with our community, publishing partners, and industry regulators to ensure we’re providing our players with the safest possible experience.

"Beginning today, as part of our compliance program for the UK Online Safety Act and our ongoing investments in tools and technologies that help ensure age-appropriate experiences, players who indicate their account age as 18 and over, based in the UK, and signing into an Xbox experience with a Microsoft account will begin seeing notifications encouraging them to verify their age. 

"This one-time process for players in the UK ensures we can continue to provide all players on our platform with age-appropriate experiences."

"Starting early next year, age verification will be required for these players in the UK to retain full access to social features on Xbox, such as voice or text communication and game invites.

"Players who don’t verify their age between now and early 2026 can continue to play and enjoy Xbox. However, starting early next year, their use of social features on Xbox will become limited to friends only until they complete the age verification process.

"Whether a player verifies their age will not affect any previous purchases, entitlements, gameplay history, achievements, or the ability to play and purchase games, however we encourage players to verify their age via this one-time process now to ensure uninterrupted use of social features on Xbox in the future."

You can read more on their website here.