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Brits getting around age verification using animated game faces [1]

['Rob Beschizza']

Date: 2025-07-26

Death Stranding's "photo mode," which lets players mug and gurn for the camera with actor Norman Reedus's 56-year-old face, is one method youngsters are using to defeat Britain's new online age verification system, part of its sprawling Online Safety Act. The time from the K-iD system going online to becoming a joke was measured in hours, if not minutes.

"We weren't sure whether it would work for us because Sam was wearing his otter cap in our James' save file," write PC Gamer's Jacob Ridley and James Bentley, "but it worked just fine."

We're enjoying smutty Baldur's Gate 3 fanfics on Discord again. Not that we couldn't anyways, we're all 18 or older here. Nor are we telling you to circumvent these restrictions. Adult content is for adults. But it is a fun hack, and a good way of keeping your actual face far away from Discord's age verification system, K-id. K-id is able to verify users in one of two ways: Face Scan or Scan ID. The latter is fairly self-explanatory, but the former uses checks to verify how old you look to see if you're good to view whatever adult content you're hoping to view. Discord essentially demands age verification for the following:

An authoritarian legal apparatus that all understood would never accomplish its stated aims, implemented by lowest-bidding private companies while imposing vast regulatory costs, casually defeated instantly by any kid with an IQ above room temperature. But don't worry, taxpayer: more can always be spent on being seen to do something.

Previously:

• Free zombie game Urban Dead announces shutdown after 20 years due to UK Online Safety Act requirements

• 4chan, file-sharing services among first targets of UK's 'Online Safety' law

• Britain's online safety rules come into force, and sites are already shutting down.

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