According to a report from Reclaim The Net: Free Speech, Privacy, Digital Rights, the company has published developer instructions for an application programming interface that is not yet live. Once activated, the API will let Windows 11 apps learn a user’s age bracket and whether that age has been confirmed by an identity provider.
The brackets are blunt: under 10, 10 to 12, 13 to 15, 16 to 17, and 18 and over. Verification status arrives as one of five results — Verified, Unverified, OptedOut, TemporarilyUnavailable, or NotApplicable.
Microsoft has not named the identity providers that will carry out these checks, nor has it said what proof they will demand. The company states only that the second value returned by the interface will show “whether the user’s age has been independently verified by the identity provider.”
Redmond presents the tool as a privacy safeguard, a way for apps to learn an age range without receiving a date of birth or other personal details. Microsoft describes it as a privacy-preserving mechanism meant to help developers satisfy child-safety rules. The same report argues that legislation demanding this kind of technology in operating systems is really about making age checks, and the identity checks that follow, a routine feature of digital life.
An age signal does not hand over a user’s exact age. It instead lets an app change content, features, or access based on the reported range and verification status. Microsoft lists uses that include user-generated content, social and communication tools, in-app purchases, virtual currencies, and maturity-rated media.
The interface is still dormant. Microsoft says it will not return usable data until it is turned on later in the year and is releasing the documentation now so developers can prepare. Anyone who calls the API today will be told the user’s age is unknown and that verification is unavailable.....<<<Read More>>>...