Apple UK Age Verification Chaos: Users Face Failed Scans, Rejected Passports, and Forced Content Filters

[usonian]

https://reclaimthenet.org/apple-uk-age-verification-chaos

Apple’s iOS 26.4 age verification system is failing UK users who don’t have a credit card or photocard driving license, leaving them with no way to prove they’re adults on devices they’ve owned for years.

The system arrived without warning, without explanation, and without any apparent consideration for the people who don’t fit Apple’s narrow assumptions about what a British adult looks like. (1)

One reader, a 67-year-old retired teacher, has used Apple products since 2009. She doesn’t drive and has never owned a credit card, paying for everything with a debit card from the same bank for over 30 years. Apple rejects debit cards entirely. Her iPhone now blocks certain apps, filters her web browsing, and scans her messages for nudity.

snip

These aren’t edge cases. Millions of UK adults don’t carry credit cards. The UK has no national ID card. Plenty of people, particularly the elderly, those with health conditions, and those who simply never learned to drive, don’t hold a photocard driving license. Apple built a verification system around documents that a significant portion of the adult population doesn’t have, then gave those people no alternative and no warning.

(1) Are THESE typical British adults? Inquiring minds want to know!




TWO Brits for the price of one!




Speaking of Benny Hill, now for some entertainment.

(Boots Randolph was not British, so who cares?)

[Soul_of_Wit]

1. The villain here is UK government overreach (n/m)

[usonian]

2. Agree, but there are still some people with a spine.

Leads of some Linux distros are refusing to comply with state "register your age" laws.

And I personally will distribute "illegal" operating system media, even if every brainless state rep, senator, the Attorney General and Governor himself object.

Ageless Linux
https://agelesslinux.org/

Software for humans of indeterminate age. We don't know how old you are. We don't want to know. We are legally required to ask. We won't.

Ageless Linux is a registered operating system under the definitions established by the California Digital Age Assurance Act (AB 1043, Chapter 675, Statutes of 2025). We are in full, knowing, and intentional noncompliance with the age verification requirements of Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.501(a).

Do I think that a server farm of 10,000 or more computers will ask the admin to answer "YES" to the age verification question 10,000 times over?

Not really.