{"id":101404,"date":"2025-08-29T18:26:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T18:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/101404\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T18:26:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T18:26:08","slug":"steam-now-requiring-users-to-verify-age-in-the-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/101404\/","title":{"rendered":"Steam Now Requiring Users To Verify Age In The UK"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Valve\u2019s extremely popular PC gaming store Steam is now requiring users in the United Kingdom to <a href=\"https:\/\/kotaku.com\/roblox-child-account-safety-settings-danger-1851680045\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">verify their age<\/a> using a credit card. This is a direct result of the UK\u2019s controversial Online Safety Act.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/uk-steam-users-must-now-verify-age-to-access-store-pages-for-mature-games-thanks-to-online-safety-act\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">As of August 29, as spotted by Eurogamer<\/a>, it looks like Valve is now requiring that all users in the United Kingdom verify how old they are before they will be able to access mature video games. <a href=\"https:\/\/help.steampowered.com\/en\/faqs\/view\/292B-3DA3-CFC8-97F6\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Valve has also updated its official Steam Support website<\/a> with new information about age verification, telling UK users that \u201cin order to access Steam store pages for mature content games,\u201d they\u2019ll need to go through an \u201copt-in process\u201d that requires age verification via credit card. Going through this process will \u201ctrigger a \u00a30 authorization\u201d on the card to check if it\u2019s active and real.<\/p>\n<p>Valve says that as long as the credit card stored on the Steam account is valid, the account is considered \u201cage verified.\u201d So you should only have to do this once. Hopefully.<\/p>\n<p>According to the updated Steam Support website, Valve \u201creviewed\u201d all age verification methods and determined that using a credit card preserved \u201cthe maximum degree of user privacy\u201d compared to some other sites and services that use AI-powered facial scanning tech.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe data processed in the verification process is identical to that of the millions of other Steam users who make purchases or store their payment details for convenience,\u201d explained Valve on the website. \u201cThe verification process therefore provides no information about a user\u2019s content preferences to payment providers or other third parties. Valve handles the verification process using its own internal payment processing system, which is independently certified under the PCI-DSS standard.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Also on the site, when explaining why this new verification process is being forced upon users, Valve directly and politely lays the blame on the UK\u2019s new online safety laws and Ofcom, the nation\u2019s independent regulator for online safety.<\/p>\n<p>Valve isn\u2019t the first video game company to run into issues with the UK\u2019s Online Safety Act, which has placed large, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eff.org\/deeplinks\/2025\/08\/no-uks-online-safety-act-doesnt-make-children-safer-online\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">controversial restrictions and regulations<\/a> on how people under 18 can access the internet. In July, <a href=\"https:\/\/news.xbox.com\/en-us\/2025\/07\/28\/xbox-age-verification-uk\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Xbox began rolling out its own age verification process<\/a> in the United Kingdom. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.playstation.com\/en-gb\/support\/account\/age-verification-faq\/#:~:text=We%20are%20piloting%20an%20age%20verification%20process%20for%20players%20who%20register%20for%20new%20accounts%20in%20the%20UK%20and%20Ireland.%20If%20you%20are%20setting%20up%20an%20adult%20account%2C%20you%20will%20be%20asked%20to%20provide%20proof%20that%20you%20are%20over%20the%20minimum%20age%20for%20that%20type%20of%20account%20using%20an%20age%20verification%20service.\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sony is \u201crolling out\u201d<\/a> an age verification process in the\u00a0 UK, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Valve\u2019s extremely popular PC gaming store Steam is now requiring users in the United Kingdom to verify their&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":101405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[15262,59,57,58,50,3121,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-101404","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-age-verification","9":"tag-gb","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-greatbritain","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-steam","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}