So this has recently also affected Ubuntu.

One developer began a discussion:

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2026-March/04...

Their attempts of a "solution" are quite interesting. One other user suggested that GUI tools ask for the age of the user.

Well ... I have a very strong opinion here. I have been using Linux since over 20 years and I will not ever give any information about my personal data to the computer devices I own and control. So any GUI asking for this specifically would betray me - and I will remove it. (Granted, it is easier to patch out the offending betrayal code and recompile the thing; I do this with KDE where Nate added the pester-donation daemon. Don't complain about this on reddit #kde, he will ban you. KDE needs more money! That's the new KDE. I prefer oldschool KDE but I digress so back to the topic of age "verification").

The whole discussion about age "verification" appears to be to force everyone into giving data to the government. I don't buy for a moment that this is about "protecting children". And, even IF it were, I could not care any less about the government's strategy. Even more so as I am not in the country that decided this in the first place, so why would I be forced to comply with it when it ends up with GUI tools wanting to sniff my information and then give it to others? For similar reasons, one reason I use ublock origin is to give as few information to outside entities when I browse the web (I am not 100% consistent here, because I mostly use ublock origin to re-define the user interface, which includes blocking annoying popups and what not; that is the primary use case, but to lessen the information my browser gives to anyone else, is also a good thing. I fail to see why I would want to surrender my private data, unless there is really no alternative, e. g. online financial transactions.)

I also don't think we should call this age "verification" law. This is very clearly written by a lobbiyst or several lobbyists who want to sniff more data off of people. The very underlying idea here is wrong - I would not accept Linux to become a spy-tool for the government. I am not interested in how a government tries to reason about this betrayal - none of those attempts of "explanation" apply in my case. It is simply not the job of the government to sniff after all people at all times. This would normally require a warrant/reasonable suspicion of a crime. Why would people surrender their rights here? Why is a government sniffing after people suddenly? These are important questions. That law suddenly emerging but not in the last +25 years is super-suspicious.

I agree this is bullshit. But at least you can lie to the OS about your age. Technically it's almost the same as OS asking you "Pick a date and a number from 1 to 100 and I'll report it to the software / websites. But don't worry, I'll not verify you.". If you pick randomly (over age 18 or whatever), technically, you don't provide any useful information.

This would be the least of evils (such as ID verification). But a bigger problem is that the implementation is very flawed. It doesn't appear to be very effective. People, including children, can lie. Multiple people can share the same account. Also there are many devices that cannot be updated (such as embedded). My concern is that these idiots might introduce even more extreme laws when they see that it isn't efficient enough.

I hope it will cause so many problems (implementation, backslash, etc) that it will be eventually cancelled.