Can't confirm age in UK

LD150 wrote:

Deanl34 wrote:

But what about people who don’t drive, don’t have photo id and don’t have a credit card ?

Email your M.P.

Government ones will be embarrassed, opposition ones will jump on it.

There are a lot more ways to identify age allowed under the Online Safety Act than the limited set that Apple uses. Visual identification is a valid method and doesn’t require a government issued ID.

IdrisSeabright wrote:

And then there's Apple's privacy concerns. Visual identification requires sending your information to a third party. Given how outraged people are that Apple is sending driver's license information to the government (which issued the license in the first place), I can only imagine the uproar sending facial identifiers to a third party would cause.

You make some good points. Apple are often not the first to a given idea but are often the ones that bring an innovative solution. I am surprised that they don’t use on-device approximate age determination. That would have been a game changer for privacy whilst still offering compliance. It would have been a win for Apple in terms of child protection whilst assuring all but the most nervous about government surveillance.

GlasgowDave wrote:

IdrisSeabright wrote:

And then there's Apple's privacy concerns. Visual identification requires sending your information to a third party. Given how outraged people are that Apple is sending driver's license information to the government (which issued the license in the first place), I can only imagine the uproar sending facial identifiers to a third party would cause.

You make some good points. Apple are often not the first to a given idea but are often the ones that bring an innovative solution. I am surprised that they don’t use on-device approximate age determination. That would have been a game changer for privacy whilst still offering compliance. It would have been a win for Apple in terms of child protection whilst assuring all but the most nervous about government surveillance.

It's very hard for any of us to know why Apple did what they did or their plans for the future. It's certainly within the realm of possiblity that Apple is or has considered such a system but did not believe it was currently sufficient. I don't know enough about the technology to really guess what's involved, though.

Have you given that feedback to Apple? It wouldn't hurt.

Product Feedback - Apple

lukairure46 wrote:

As I was reading through the recent exchange, I was actually going to make a very similar suggestion. It would be straightforward to modify their current faceID biometric algorithm - a feature that operates on-device - to identify faces that clearly fall in the 18+ classification. As long as they define the cutoff minimum age estimate sufficiently high (maybe ~28 yo), any inherent margin of error around the critical 16-22 yo range could be mitigated.

Have you made this suggestion to the people who can do something about it? If not, I urge you to do so.

Product Feedback - Apple

Go to Settings > [your name]. · Tap Personal Information. You may need to sign in to your Apple Account. · Tap your date of birth to edit it. Read more

Update the date of birth associated with an Apple Account

You’re not alone. I don’t have a credit card at the moment and my driver’s licence is the old UK paper type without a photo. I’ve had an Apple ID for about 20 years.

With this restriction, I’m going to lose functionality on my phone that I’ve already paid for. Worst still is if they add this to iPadOS and this restricts me from using that device for my job.

All in all, Apple have failed on this one.

Dave

Not every one can get these so easily I have a passport that is the main form of ID in the UK I can’t get a credit card and I can’t drive ! Why did they put it in place before actually seeing we don’t have ID cards here like other countries and changing it to passport first before the update it’s ridiculous. I’ve been with Apple for nearly 20 years. I’ve got my bank cards stored in my wallet. Why didn’t they just do passport verification as well as driving license? Loads of people in the UK don’t have driving licenses or credit cards ffs

lukairure46 wrote:

@seeshell66 - There was at least one account of passports working when I skimmed through last night. I do remember it required substantial optimization of optical parameters (lighting, contrast, etc) and multiple attempts. Maybe persistence will pay off for you.

Edit/Correction: UK passports cannot be used. I guess they accepted someone’s US passport. (Wow. <insert world’s largest eyeroll emoji>)

I have a paper driving license, debit cards and bus pass, none are excepted by Apple. As a 69 year old I find it farcical that they won’t except my sole methods of verification but they are quite happy to accept my debit card for the Wallet app. Anybody would think that they’ll accept that as it’s possibly revenue for them. What a total mess, no doubt that they won’t bother sorting this out as it would mean admitting a mistake.

Well you can’t force someone if they don’t want. Like my son 15 years old hes working weekend and he’s paying hes phone if he doesn’t like you can’t do anything because he’s paying hes on. And if force them they report you police after that we’re the parents go prison? We know they concerned. Answer is mind their on business not someone business easy im pretty sure there family is not perfect.

Jluis236 wrote:

I am writing to raise a concern regarding the age verification process introduced in iOS 26.4.

Unfortunately, no one here in this user-to-user forum can do anything about that. We can't answer why Apple chose the methods it did and not others. Apple doesn't read here for feedback or suggestions. Nor do they answer questions here.

It’s disgraceful, I’ve had Apple for years, and now they are starting this, I have no restrictions yet but don’t know long before I get restrictions, i can’t understand cause you have to be an adult to set up Apple ID so why can’t they use that ?

It certainly seems to have, thank goodness my contract is paid for. I’ll give it 2 weeks to sort out or they can lose around 1000 customers from what I will say across the uk. Due to age verification I bs

Jmas92 wrote:

It certainly seems to have, thank goodness my contract is paid for. I’ll give it 2 weeks to sort out or they can lose around 1000 customers from what I will say across the uk. Due to age verification I bs

Just curious, but where else will you go for a cell phone? Android? Nope, they have to follow the same laws. Google Pixel? Nope. They own Android and they too have to follow the same laws. Any cell phone you can buy in the UK will have the same restrictions.

But sure, threaten to go elsewhere, then you can start complaining on another forum for that line of phones. No one here on this user to user only forum will be bothered if you buy a different phone. But it's often a smart idea to look before you leap.

It’s disgraceful, I’ve had Apple for years, and now they are starting this

Apple did not start anything. They are trying to abide by the new laws in the U.K.

i can’t understand cause you have to be an adult to set up Apple ID s

Not correct. You have to be 13 to set up an Apple ID.