userdb: add birthDate field to JSON user records by dylanmtaylor · Pull Request #40954 · systemd/systemd
github.com
Stores the user's birth date for age verification, as required by recent laws in California (AB-1043), Colorado (SB26-051), Brazil (Lei 15.211/2025), etc. The xdg-desktop-portal project is addi...

Fork time? Maybe all the anti-systemd zealots were right all along…

Edit: To address whether it is likely that this change will affect users: Gnome is planning a stronger dependence on userdb, the part of systemd where this change is being implemented. https://blogs.gnome.org/adrianvovk/2025/06/10/gnome-systemd-dependencies/

Final Edit: The PR has been merged into main.

  • caseyweederman
    302·
    8 days ago

    It is possible that California law will be changed. But similar ideas are popping up in other contexts and it’s unlikely that they’ll all go away. This implementation is fairly generic and useful for other things besides age verification, so we shouldn’t decide whether to merge it or not based on a single law in any jurisdiction.

    https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/40954#issuecomment-4032355482

    • idriss@lemmy.ml
      42·
      7 days ago

      yep, it might be needed or not, let’s invest valuable dev time into it, it will open the door for user tracking based on age bracket now at least, nobody asked for it, but let’s do it anyways. Fuck Systemd for approving and merging this.