Implementation of the supposed Online Safety Act continues to be dumb

This morning I read that Microsoft had started to open up "voluntary" age verification for Xbox for using social features. It's "voluntary" only for the time being as they are intending to make it compulsory at the start of the year for those in the UK. What's also interesting is that they said they would be using it to help inform what they do in other regions moving forwards.

Sorry rest of the world for being the guineapig here...

So far, with all the other instances where I've been asked to verify my age, mostly Bluesky and Reddit for now - somehow Discord hasn't asked me(?) - I've booted up the old VPN and travelled across the ocean to another land. Yet, in this instance, I decided to give the verification a go to see what it actually entails, in part because in this instance it was low stakes as I don't use the social features on Xbox and I'm gradually moving away from it.

Another point to note is that Microsoft are using YOTI for the age verification (so too are Meta apparently). In the UK we have something called a "Citizen card" which is basically just a card to prove your age that is backed by the police but without needing to bring around a passport. Or a drivers licence, because a decreasing number of us have those. I actually have a citizen card and it is connected to YOTI, I'm not sure how close the partnership is, but because I have the card I was also able to setup a YOTI account at the same time.

With this in mind, I assumed that Microsoft would just give me the option to sign in to my YOTI account and it would be job done. But, NO, I can't do that, as YOTI just do the verification, they don't want to use their own data. However, you can use a citizen card as one of the forms of ID. At least, in theory, as in reality it couldn't recognise my card.

In the end I gave up and tried the stupid face recognition (after all, YOTI does have my face already). This did work quickly, albeit on the second go.

There were other options that YOTI give, such as using a bank card/details or using your phone provider to verify.

The thing with all of this though, why does Microsoft in this instance even need to solely rely on a third party? As they have most of this information to chose from about me already! They have my payment information. Heck, my Xbox account is old enough to drink in the UK! That alone should help.

Now I've learnt how in practice this how procedure is stupid and needs removing until a far better idea is offered.