- cross-posted to:
- linux
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- linux
- [email protected]
Add a required birth date prompt (YYYY-MM-DD) to the user creation flow, stored as a systemd userdb JSON drop-in at /etc/userdb/<user>.user on the target system.
Motivation
Recent age verification laws in California (AB-1043), Colorado (SB26-051), Brazil (Lei 15.211/2025), etc. require platforms to verify user age. Collecting birth date at install time ensures Arch Linux is compliant with these regulations.
This is just a pull request, no changes yet.
The pull-request discussion thread has been locked, just like it happened for the similar thread in Systemd, owing to the amount of negative comments…
My Linux based IOT devices will now need age verification for default accounts…? And now any devices will expect to have non-shareable specific accounts…? So to open my fridge and use its apps I need to verify as me…? I’m me?
I gotta take out my ID to do docker run --rm hello-world
https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/14/bellovin/#wont-someone-think-of-the-cryptographers
I thought it was an optional field, like the name field
It might be for now or in the current implementation but the implication that this information, should it exist, can then be validated and enforced on a service or application level with this value or expansion to more formal forms of identity and age verification is where we are forced to meet dystopia and exchange pleasantries while the guardians watch over our sanctioned play dates.
In systemd it would be optional. This post is about the OS making it a requirement to ask the user birthdate and using said optional field to store it.
ISO Standard corpofascism ruse. It’s optional until it’s not / “the first dose is free”.
If you have a fridge with an app
GET OUT
You laugh but have you seen hdd prices recently? cold storage problems require modern solutions!