iOS 26.4 age verification without credit card or plastic ID

You can also skip the Credit Card step and use a Driver's License, TOTUM card, MyID card, or CitizenCard. Apple is not interested in your data, it is required by the UK to verify age. Even if you were to add a Credit Card to your Wallet app, Apple still has no idea what your Account Number is, and that is after the card is scanned.

lobsterghost1 wrote:

TCHDMF wrote:

Phil0124 wrote:

IdrisSeabright wrote:

TCHDMF wrote:

The UK government via OFCOM has not stated a specific list of methods that must be used for age verification. The have provided a non-exhaustive list that includes comparing photo IDs to Live Photos as well as using Credit Card checks. It also includes age estimates from Live Photos, mobile carrier checks (cell number), and direct banking checks, among others. It also identifies methods that are not acceptable, such as self-verification (check boxes). This information is available on OFCOM’s website.

No one here is privy to Apple's decision-making process. And, even more pointedly, no one here can make Apple change anything. You can let Apple know any thoughts you may have on the matter here:

Product Feedback - Apple

I would suspect that Apple would be in a whole raft of trouble if whatever method they picked to verify age failed and still let children access naughty websites. They probably want to avoid that. The fines are quite large.

The Facial Age Estimation, one of the options, appears to be done by a third party. Frankly, that sounds like a privacy disaster just waiting to happen.

Indeed. I'm fairly certain apple chose Credit Card and Driving License as the 2 most Privacy compliant options. Rather than hand over personally identifiable data to a third party for verification without any way of guaranteeing the use and protection of said data.

Microsoft being less concerned about user's privacy chose the path of least resistance and offloads the verification to other parties.

The addition of the Apple Account's creation date as a means of age verification also implies Apple had to at least consider other options and involve the UK government in that decision. I doubt they could unilaterally use the account creation date without getting some kind of approval for it from the UK government.

Also, officials passing this law undoubtedly did not stop to consider how this verification was going to happen when they were drafting it which is why there is no hard list, and just some available options without any concern for personal data usage and privacy.

I agree that Apple is concerned about being compliant with laws and regulations, or rather I would hope they are concerned with that. However, maybe I am missing something, but given that the age verification is being done on an iPhone which very likely has a mobile number associated with it, I would think the query of the mobile provider regarding the mobile number would be among the easiest options.

Just how would a mobile number help verify someone's age? Say I'm a parent and I want a new phone and number and I give my 13 year old my phone and let them keep the number? Verifying age by a phone number simply wouldn't be nearly enough.

You have a very good point that I completely agree with. However, the OFCOM guidance specifically identifies that using the mobile number to verify age of the user with the Mobile provider is an acceptable approach. The OFCOM guidance explains that what should be checked for the number is whether or not the number has age restrictions applied. If the number does not have age restrictions applied the user of the number is assumed to be over 18 and if the age restrictions are applied the user is under 18. I presume that they assume the owner of the account would set age restrictions on the lines being used by those under 18. But I'm just going by my reading of the OFCOM guidance documents. I am not arguing whether any of this is good or bad. My only real point is that the original poster's issue is with Apple and their implementation of the OFCOM guidance and not with the OFCOM guidance itself.

TCHDMF wrote:

lobsterghost1 wrote:

TCHDMF wrote:

Phil0124 wrote:

IdrisSeabright wrote:

TCHDMF wrote:

The UK government via OFCOM has not stated a specific list of methods that must be used for age verification. The have provided a non-exhaustive list that includes comparing photo IDs to Live Photos as well as using Credit Card checks. It also includes age estimates from Live Photos, mobile carrier checks (cell number), and direct banking checks, among others. It also identifies methods that are not acceptable, such as self-verification (check boxes). This information is available on OFCOM’s website.

No one here is privy to Apple's decision-making process. And, even more pointedly, no one here can make Apple change anything. You can let Apple know any thoughts you may have on the matter here:

Product Feedback - Apple

I would suspect that Apple would be in a whole raft of trouble if whatever method they picked to verify age failed and still let children access naughty websites. They probably want to avoid that. The fines are quite large.

The Facial Age Estimation, one of the options, appears to be done by a third party. Frankly, that sounds like a privacy disaster just waiting to happen.

Indeed. I'm fairly certain apple chose Credit Card and Driving License as the 2 most Privacy compliant options. Rather than hand over personally identifiable data to a third party for verification without any way of guaranteeing the use and protection of said data.

Microsoft being less concerned about user's privacy chose the path of least resistance and offloads the verification to other parties.

The addition of the Apple Account's creation date as a means of age verification also implies Apple had to at least consider other options and involve the UK government in that decision. I doubt they could unilaterally use the account creation date without getting some kind of approval for it from the UK government.

Also, officials passing this law undoubtedly did not stop to consider how this verification was going to happen when they were drafting it which is why there is no hard list, and just some available options without any concern for personal data usage and privacy.

I agree that Apple is concerned about being compliant with laws and regulations, or rather I would hope they are concerned with that. However, maybe I am missing something, but given that the age verification is being done on an iPhone which very likely has a mobile number associated with it, I would think the query of the mobile provider regarding the mobile number would be among the easiest options.

Just how would a mobile number help verify someone's age? Say I'm a parent and I want a new phone and number and I give my 13 year old my phone and let them keep the number? Verifying age by a phone number simply wouldn't be nearly enough.

You have a very good point that I completely agree with. However, the OFCOM guidance specifically identifies that using the mobile number to verify age of the user with the Mobile provider is an acceptable approach. The OFCOM guidance explains that what should be checked for the number is whether or not the number has age restrictions applied. If the number does not have age restrictions applied the user of the number is assumed to be over 18 and if the age restrictions are applied the user is under 18. I presume that they assume the owner of the account would set age restrictions on the lines being used by those under 18. But I'm just going by my reading of the OFCOM guidance documents. I am not arguing whether any of this is good or bad. My only real point is that the original poster's issue is with Apple and their implementation of the OFCOM guidance and not with the OFCOM guidance itself.

That's all good and well. But no matter how much you argue what OFCOM this or that is or isn't, isn't helping anyone who can't verify their age. This might be a great Social Media discussion. But this isn't a Social Media site. This is a technical support forum for users to ask how to do something on their iPhone. It simply makes no difference what OFCOM or the UK Government or Apple does here. None of those entities are here, nor will any of those entities comment here. I can imagine if you go to Reddit or Quora, you may find loads of people who will be happy to debate this with you. But this forum isn't the place to debate policies, regulations or laws no one here can change or has any control over.

WinstonWoof wrote:

The UK Govt has not yet mandated AV at an OS Level.

Apple have chosen to do this themselves premptively

Apple does provide services on your device that ARE mandated by the UK Government for age verification. That makes them the Service Provider and subject to fines by not following the mandate. Without Age Verification, the Communication Safety limits on your device will be turned on. For example, Messages is an Apple service and with Communication Safety limits turned on, any Message sent to you (or a child) that contain nudity will be blurred. The same is true to photos that are shared on iCloud that may also be viewable on your device.

Verification can be performed with one of the following documents:

• You can confirm your age with a credit card, or by scanning a driver's license or one of the following PASS-accredited Proof of Age cards: CitizenCard, My ID Card, TOTUM ID card, or Young Scot National Entitlement Card. If you already have an Apple Account, Apple will check if you have a credit card on file or other eligible methods available to confirm that you're 18 or older.

click here ➜ Age requirements for managing an Apple Account in the UK - Apple Support

ScrapyardGuitar wrote:

Apple support was my first port of call, they were unable to provide a solution other than to provide a list of documents that I don’t have.

Bottom line? If you cannot or are unwilling to provide the documents required by U.K. law then you are out of luck and will be restricted from using certain services. And as more governments require age verification in an attempt to protect minors from dangerous content the requirements will only get more stringent.

I’m 76 and I still have to provide proof of age to buy alcohol in the U.S.

Living life as an ‘off the grid’ outlier can be difficult at times.

@Idris - the company is called Yoti. I'd never heard of them till yesterday but their website has some interesting stuff on their facial age verification. The rest I guess is just APIs. In the UK the mobile network operators have to put content locks on all accounts which can only be removed by an adult with proof of age - so I guess that must be API'd based on phone number and all the sender gets is a token. The DVLA has an API for getting driver information from a licence - dunno how that works, but uk.gov web services are pretty good (we can file our personal tax returns for free on uk.gov and it does all the calculations for you).

Microsoft uses Yoti and I doubt that their lawyers are any less risk averse than Apple's but I don't reckon that's why Apple has limited it to CC and driving licence. I think they've picked the quickest and easiest. They already have the CC check in all their systems and the driving licence check is via a DVLA API. The others (email check, open banking) either require them to do more work or contract with someone like Yoti.

Of course it might just be a US-centric view of the world where virtually everyone who is capable of driving has a licence, although that could open them up to disability discrimination legislation. I didn't get a driving licence til I was 27 or 28.

The problem with ID in the UK is that we (mostly older people, and not me) have a massive aversion to ID cards, which would solve this problem at a stroke. The last two govs proposed optional ID cards and both backed down. The current one is proposing a digitial only, optional one and it will almost certainly back down or slow roll it so it never happens. I've lived in countries with mandatory ID cards and they were fine.

myfairlady12345 wrote:

I am 64 and I can’t verify my age, I don’t drive , I don’t have a credit card and my country doesn’t even do national ID card but you can buy something but not sure APPLE will accept it..I am now locked out of so much on my phone . I am a full time carer and I did apply for a credit card yesterday but as I don’t get much money I was turned down. Fir me there is no end in sight to this nonsense.

Contact your MP. The U.K. government mandated this, not Apple. Apple is following the law and is subject to massive fines if it does not comply.

The issue is not that they did it, it's that they didn't give all adults a way to prove they are an adult.

UK law is clear. It says that the methods must be effective, and it then goes on to give a long list of options. Apple picked three which are not available to everyone, and one is so obscure, nobody's even heard of it. That's entirely their choice. And that's the problem.

Google may allow face scans, which they are allowed to do, then the problem is solved. The issue is, I'll say it again, not that the check is there, but that legitimate users cannot get through. So to the people saying they will go to Android, absolutely. Google may not have such a ridiculously restrictive list of options.

I hear Apple will also accept some ID card aimed at people who look too young for pubs, so nobody over about 22 has one, and it costs money. Why should someone need to pay money to get back what they are entitled to? I have been an adult for rather longer than I'd like. I will not go into my circumstances for obvious reasons, but some people have medical conditions which precludes driving and they don't need a credit card, because they have a need for one. They may well have numerous other ways to prove their age, or who they are (although this isn't about ID). My face proves I'm an adult, and that's enough for pretty much everyone else.It's good enough for UK law too (see the many links to what it says).

The law, in particular, does not say Apple should lock down users that don't possess a driving licence of credit card. That's the issue. And why would you think Google would make the same mistakes after seeing this fiasco? They won't.

AJP_850 wrote:

The issue is not that they did it, it's that they didn't give all adults a way to prove they are an adult.

UK law is clear. It says that the methods must be effective, and it then goes on to give a long list of options. Apple picked three which are not available to everyone, and one is so obscure, nobody's even heard of it. That's entirely their choice. And that's the problem.

Google may allow face scans, which they are allowed to do, then the problem is solved. The issue is, I'll say it again, not that the check is there, but that legitimate users cannot get through. So to the people saying they will go to Android, absolutely. Google may not have such a ridiculously restrictive list of options.

I hear Apple will also accept some ID card aimed at people who look too young for pubs, so nobody over about 22 has one, and it costs money. Why should someone need to pay money to get back what they are entitled to? I have been an adult for rather longer than I'd like. I will not go into my circumstances for obvious reasons, but some people have medical conditions which precludes driving and they don't need a credit card, because they have a need for one. They may well have numerous other ways to prove their age, or who they are (although this isn't about ID). My face proves I'm an adult, and that's enough for pretty much everyone else.It's good enough for UK law too (see the many links to what it says).

The law, in particular, does not say Apple should lock down users that don't possess a driving licence of credit card. That's the issue. And why would you think Google would make the same mistakes after seeing this fiasco? They won't.

You are wasting your time arguing your points with me or anyone else on this user to user only forum. How many times do we need to say that we aren't Apple and we aren't the UK Government? Whether you have valid points or don't have valid points makes absolutely no difference here. Apple isn't here and they aren't reading your posts.

If you want to tell Apple what they should be doing, do so. You haven't done so here, so you're truly wasting your time to keep posting what is wrong with this. We can't change anything Apple has implemented in any way. PERIOD.

Just to share in case it helps anyone: I called Apple Support and found a few interesting things:

• Credit cards only – debit cards won’t work.
• Driving licenses do work! As someone mentioned earlier, just type it in manually, scroll to the bottom, and it should accept it.
• Over-60/senior railway cards aren’t accepted unfortunately. :)

Hope that saves someone a bit of time!

Face ID is only designed to map the shape of your face to unlock your phone, but the camera itself actually has no idea how old you are. While the UK government does allow companies to use AI age-estimating technology, Apple chose not to build that into this update because it relies on guessing and can be highly inaccurate, which is why they are stubbornly forcing everyone to provide hard proof like a physical ID or credit card instead.

AJP_850 wrote:

Facial age estimation is allowed by the government. Apple chose not to use it, and instead to allow restrict customer to methods that not everyone has. !00% their decision.

You can certainly promote Facial age estimation if you wish, but others have been much more concerned about the immutable biometric data being leaked. Any card that has been compromised can be replaced offering a protection that is not possible with Face data that cannot be changed. The only thing that is worse than a breach at a third party server that holds users financial data, is one that has your biometric data. The data gained through AI analysis to determine age verification includes much more than just a picture that you may find on an ID and most would even consider having to show Photo ID is too much.

Even with the use of Face ID on your device, Apple has no access to your Face data and it is stored only on your device in the Secure Enclave and never transferred over any network. The data also cannot be transferred from one phone to another. Apple has taken a hardline approach to protecting their users biometric data and you are correct it is 100% their choice.

The UK Govt has not yet mandated AV at an OS Level.

Apple have chosen to do this themselves premptively

find apple chat bot and it will help or they’ll ring you and it should work if you do what the guy asks you, took a week to sort mine but works fine now