Valve’s extremely popular PC gaming store Steam is now requiring users in the United Kingdom to verify their age using a credit card. This is a direct result of the UK’s controversial Online Safety Act.
As of August 29, as spotted by Eurogamer, 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. Valve has also updated its official Steam Support website with new information about age verification, telling UK users that “in order to access Steam store pages for mature content games,” they’ll need to go through an “opt-in process” that requires age verification via credit card. Going through this process will “trigger a £0 authorization” on the card to check if it’s active and real.
Valve says that as long as the credit card stored on the Steam account is valid, the account is considered “age verified.” So you should only have to do this once. Hopefully.
According to the updated Steam Support website, Valve “reviewed” all age verification methods and determined that using a credit card preserved “the maximum degree of user privacy” compared to some other sites and services that use AI-powered facial scanning tech.
“The 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,” explained Valve on the website. “The verification process therefore provides no information about a user’s 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.”
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’s new online safety laws and Ofcom, the nation’s independent regulator for online safety.
Valve isn’t the first video game company to run into issues with the UK’s Online Safety Act, which has placed large, controversial restrictions and regulations on how people under 18 can access the internet. In July, Xbox began rolling out its own age verification process in the United Kingdom. Sony is “rolling out” an age verification process in the UK, too.
