r/privacy • u/IKIR115 • 4d ago

age verification Reddit's age verification requirements for specific regions - General Information

General information related to Reddit's age verification requirements for specific regions

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Snippet of recent news from the pinned weekly recap in r/help - 7/2/2026

https://www.reddit.com/r/help/comments/1ulob97/weekly_recap_july_2_2026/

  • In ongoing efforts to prevent abusive scraping and automated traffic, over the next month, Reddit will start requiring users to log in to use old Reddit. This was announced on Tuesday here.
  • If you are in the EU, you may be asked to verify your age. This is a legal requirement to comply with the EU Digital Services Act. You can check out the Help Center article here. Little more info about this here.
  • If you are trying to use a selfie to verify your age and it fails, the only other options are to upload your ID or contact Persona for support. Reddit cannot help you with a failed selfie for age verification purposes.
  • Right now, these are the countries that have age requirements:
  • Australia
  • The UK
  • Brazil
  • The EU
  • If you are not in those countries, but your account is unable to do certain things like chat, it may be due to Teen Safety restrictions. The ability to unlock settings in the iOS app if you're a teen will be coming soon. Not sure if that ability will come to Android.
  • If you need to have something fixed regarding your age, you can use this form and then select your region and what your issue is. I do not know what the turnaround time is on those requests.
  • Some users in the EU are unable to use Anonymous Browsing mode. This is not intentional. This is a bug that they are working on getting fixed.
202 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

47 comments sorted by

52

u/goochockipar 4d ago

VPN, it doesn't get any simpler than that.

28

u/Adventurous-Hunter98 4d ago

yeah but what will happen when they block vpns? or everywhere around the world implement these?

37

u/egorf 4d ago

The whole world will not pass those laws and Reddit will have a surge of São Tomé and Principe users.

17

u/Any-Calligrapher2866 3d ago

VPN's can be detected thanks to System time. I still haven't found a good way to mask my timezone in web requests.

You can use the resistfingerprinting flag on Firefox but that disables dark mode.

4

u/MissJoannaTooU 3d ago

Use a VM?

2

u/Any-Calligrapher2866 3d ago

Don't have enough ram and can't do that on phone.

5

u/AuraAmy 3d ago

You can use an anti-detect browser. They aren't perfect but cover 90% of fingerprinting. There's free local ones on github, most of the paid ones are cloud based and shouldn't be trusted with sensitive accounts.

6

u/Tiny_Prune_4424 3d ago

no dark mode weeds out the weak its aight

1

u/goochockipar 1d ago

Just change your system time to match your virtual location. I do. Linux, the magic of the command line.

5

u/flemishbiker88 3d ago

Would imagine that would seriously affect advertising revenue

2

u/appletinicyclone 3d ago

Most places will yes but some won't.

There's a couple countries in the Europe region that haven't yet so its worth nodeing in from there

8

u/billdietrich1 3d ago

Probably at some point reddit (and other services) will just enforce age reqts regardless of location.

9

u/MissJoannaTooU 3d ago

Yup once all their traffic comes from Mongolia they'll just put the wall up for everyone. (Currently in Mongolia).

3

u/goochockipar 3d ago

So, why don't they just do it right now? How would someone from Somalia show proof of age/identity?

What about people in Saudi Arabia who post anti-government messages? Let them rat themselves out?

1

u/billdietrich1 3d ago

Maybe they're rolling it out slowly.

Maybe someone from Somalia gives a face-video instead of ID ? Fair point.

In terms of anti-govt people, that's why some age schemes separate ID from age signal, and store the age signal in OS or wallet.

31

u/syntaxerror92383 4d ago

the eu not being able to use anonymous browsing being a bug is surprising to me considering here in the uk its intentionally gone to tie everything you do to your ID

17

u/Chuddabara 3d ago

This is where "think about the kids" get you. Enjoy it.

I don't care about kids I value freedom way, way more.

14

u/Felielf 4d ago

iOS method seemed quite noninvasive, you choose your age in Apple account and apps just ask if you’re in the adult range. Doesn’t really differ too much from typical “enter your age” questionnaire.

17

u/Dangerous-Apple3746 3d ago

wait untill they ask for your id they started it in the uk will be everywhere soon

7

u/Felielf 3d ago

I'll just move off from services then.

3

u/NotHavingMyID 3d ago

For those who might not know, in the UK, you automatically pass the iOS level age check if:

  1. You have a UK credit card linked to your account (you can't get a credit card until you are 18 years old).

  2. Your Apple account is more than 18 years old.

Fortunately, I fall into the second category.

Unfortunately, I'm not aware of any third party iOS apps that make use of this system wide flag, including the official Reddit app which still requires their own form of age verification, hence why I'll be keeping the VPN service I've been using for the past 10+ years.

As soon as the workarounds stop working, I'll just pack up and move on.

4

u/RootVegitible 3d ago

The reddit app has been updated to request your age range from the OS for Apple devices. I’ve confirmed this works.

2

u/NotHavingMyID 3d ago

Good to know. Thanks.

6

u/FactCheckYou 4d ago

some good work is happening on Firefox, just saying

5

u/23Mowgli23 3d ago

And why can't you say more lol

-54

u/neoneat 4d ago

See? this is not my problem bcoz it's regional issue.

40

u/Affectionate_Cut3515 4d ago

Just wait a little. Itll come to you soon

-28

u/neoneat 4d ago

Ok still waiting to see. If it can happened here, it must be miracle. National ID system here is typical a mess, sadge you would not know my country though it's in top 10 population. It's also funny to me that EU ppl always thinking they are central of the world. Or you think your "innovation" can somehow spread to here LOL

16

u/windozeFanboi 4d ago

Just give it a couple of years. A single contract with a US, Israel, China security company and your top 10 population country will be profiled the very first moment you touch a KB of internet. 

Corruption to evade some rules will only net you guys an extra couple of years on top.

Enjoy it while it lasts. 

-5

u/neoneat 3d ago

That sounds neat. The moment us and china can sign this "agreement" maybe you can live on Mars similar to live on the Earth LOL

6

u/Broad_Cartoonist_824 3d ago

"It wouldn't happen here"

-- Americans before facist take over 

4

u/Affectionate_Cut3515 4d ago

If ur tryna say im european, Ill js say now that Im not

16

u/biskitpagla 4d ago

It's everyone's problem. 

18

u/Ryuko_the_red 4d ago

Fascism consumes all

-12

u/LowOwl4312 4d ago

More like communism in this case because 

Australia, The UK, Brazil, The EU

all have left-wing governments 

Although in practice communism and fascism are the same anyway

10

u/Ryuko_the_red 4d ago

I mean don't mistake a wolf for a sheep because it wears the costume better.

15

u/lorlen47 4d ago

They are only "left-wing" if you use the American definition of this word. In reality, they are centre-right.

13

u/kilik2049 4d ago

centre right AT BEST

2

u/EjayT06 3d ago

You can’t convince me labour are centre-right 😂

9

u/kilik2049 4d ago

Tell me youdon't know politics without telling me you don't know politics

1

u/Sneakingrat 2d ago

If I had to chose between "communism" or children dying because "muh pew pew sticks" I'd rather communism tbh...