this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2026
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Fields like name and location do not have any expectation for the information being valid or accurate (see eg.:
adduser).DOB is different. It comes from a legal expectation that correctness of the information will be enforced somehow. If going by the Colorado and NY law proposals, IIRC, by using biometrics at the time of system install.
[citation needed]
...Have you eve been following the news and the law proposals? I'm not sure you are engaging in good faith here.
I know what's been going on.
However, the statement "legal expectation that correctness of the information will be enforced somehow" requires proof because it's currently not true.
not even said laws have an expectation that the date of birth provided would be accurate. the colorado bill just says "require[] an account holder to indicate" and never defines "indicate", the ny bill says "request an age category signal" and never defines "signal", so i assume they're like the california law which has been verified to be just "enter your date of birth in this text field/dropdown and we'll trust you girl". i don't think any of that involves biometrics
there's no alien intelligence or protocol specification in systemd that ensures or says the dob field must be accurate either
Wow, picking choice words only in sections of the laws and proposals. At least try and engage in honest discussion, mate,
Honestly, just go check Ageless Linux's site. They have a complete rundown on how and where does each law's expectation come from.
Just one (1) example:
Requires "commercially reasonable" method. In other words, the powerful agents of the market (the Googles, the Facebooks, the NSAs) get to choose what you have to do to validate. Could even require biometrics.
That's because systemd, a well-known Microslop infection into the Linux ecosystem, is using the wayland playbook: specify nothing, leave to other projects the task and legal weight of implementation. All systemd has to do is to ship the field, then other projects are delegated the task of entering in a "legally compliant" way.
You specifically named the bills from Colorado and NY. They simply do not include those. https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/SB26-051 https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/S8102/amendment/A I wholeheartedly believe my characterization of these bills are faithful.
Specifically due to how barebones it is, it is trivial to modify yourself the birthdate sent to applications, as long as you have the system password.