this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2026
117 points (92.1% liked)

Linux

12966 readers
813 users here now

A community for everything relating to the GNU/Linux operating system (except the memes!)

Also, check out:

Original icon base courtesy of lewing@isc.tamu.edu and The GIMP

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Ategon@programming.dev
anzo@programming.dev
dwraf_of_ignorance@programming.dev
117
Birthdate field under discussion also in Arch Linux (github.com)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by pglpm@lemmy.ca to c/linux@programming.dev
95 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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 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...

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 2 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

You don't need to be suspicious, they're explicitly adding it because of that. They said as much. Look at what they wrote under "Motivation."

[–] Avicenna@programming.dev 1 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

I sort of get the feeling of something more than just complying with the possible future age verification law. I feel like it has intent do damage and distrupt the community.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 1 points 6 hours ago

I feel this law has the intent to damage and disrupt things in general, yes. Parental controls have existed for ages but lawmakers don't seem interested in them. For example, all the porn bans, rather than forcing sites to use some sort of self tagging system that parental controls could easily see (like some response header) they just want them to take IDs. All of it is a push to forcing people to always be online transparently with their real identity well known.