Windows 11 Apps Will Soon Know Your Age Range, Not Your Birthday

Windows 11 age verification is coming at the operating system level, with Microsoft developing APIs that allow registered apps to request a user’s age range and verification status without receiving an exact birthday.

Microsoft says the new system should help developers comply with child-safety and age-assurance laws while reducing the amount of sensitive personal information individual apps need to collect.

Windows 11 apps will get age ranges instead of birthdays

Microsoft is building new Windows 11 APIs that let registered apps request a user’s age range and determine whether that information has been independently verified.

The GetUserAgeRangeAsync API will return one of five predefined age ranges rather than an exact age or date of birth.

Apps could use those signals to restrict mature content, purchases, social features, or other functionality that depends on a user’s age.

Operating system-level age checks have been discussed before. A few months ago, a US bill proposed age checks at the OS level for platforms including Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Windows will also tell apps whether the age was verified

Microsoft is also introducing GetAgeVerificationStatusAsync, which gives apps additional information about the reliability of the age signal.

A Verified result means an identity provider independently confirmed the user’s information.

Apps still will not receive the user’s exact birthday through these APIs.

Not every Windows app will have access

Microsoft does not plan to expose age information freely to every application installed on Windows 11.

Its Digital Safety platform will validate the identity of applications requesting age signals. Developers must register their apps with the platform before Windows provides meaningful age information.

This requirement gives Microsoft more control over which applications can access age-related signals.

Microsoft points to growing age-verification requirements

Microsoft says the APIs should help developers deal with increasingly strict child-safety and age-assurance rules.

Other platforms are already moving in the same direction. Discord has announced plans to introduce age verification for adults as it makes the teen experience the default.

XBOX in Australia also requires age verification for access to 18+ games and apps.

The UK is considering even stricter measures and plans to ban social media access for users under 16, with age verification expected to play a central role.

The new Windows 11 APIs are coming later in 2026

Microsoft has already documented GetUserAgeRangeAsync and GetAgeVerificationStatusAsync for Windows 11 version 24H2.

However, both remain prerelease APIs and Microsoft has not enabled them at runtime yet.

The company plans to activate the APIs in a future Windows release later in 2026. Until then, requests return an unknown age range and an unavailable verification status.

Age verification still raises privacy questions

One advantage of Microsoft’s approach is that individual apps would not need to collect exact birthdays, identity documents, or other sensitive verification information themselves.

Instead, apps receive only an age range and verification status.

However, operating system-level age verification still raises privacy questions because some service must verify and manage the underlying information.

Those concerns could receive additional scrutiny following the recent Windows GDID tracking controversy involving persistent device identification.

Via Windows Latest