cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/62271746
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…
I know all that.
The difference is the real name field wasn’t added as a response to laws being passed.
Go read the github thread about it. Law and specifically US law was a huge deciding factor in that.
So when this naturally escalates into even more controlling laws systemd has already signalled they are on board and willing to bend the knee.
Porn sites used to have age fields and I never thought that would ever be a problem until it turned into handing over your full blown ID.
If you can’t see the way bending the knee to fascist, bullshit, over reaching spying laws is going to escalate into borderline full blown surveillance in this scenario then I think you should do some research, friend.