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Age checks creep into Linux as systemd gets a DOB field (www.theregister.com)

submitted 4 hours ago by Powderhorn@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

19 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.

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[–] guynamedzero@piefed.zeromedia.vip 5 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

When the time comes, I’ll make a script/systemd service that will periodically change the DoB field to a random value, so it’s effectively useless as it changes every few hours/minutes/(whatever I decide). If there’s enough interest, I’ll share it with everyone else on piefed/lemmy

[–] UnhingedStopa@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

They will force you to verify it using your government info somehow after they "notice" it isn't working "as expected".

[–] guynamedzero@piefed.zeromedia.vip 1 points 48 minutes ago

That’s… not what this is. Who is “they” in this scenario? There’s no government that’s looking at these values. It’s simply a way for any app you’re running to get your DoB without a prompt to track you better.