Activision has added a new requirement to Call of Duty accounts that raises a lot more questions than answers.
As reported by Dexerto, Call of Duty players received pop-u[ messages when they logged in, saying:
In accordance with our efforts to deliver a positive community experience as detailed in the Call of Duty Code of Conduct, Activision players are being asked to provide updated information to their accounts.
They then ask for your full date of birth, and if you confirm that you’re a minor, you will get an additional pop-up message explaining that you need to get parental consent. Finally, they tell players they have to provide their birthday by November 10, 2025, otherwise their Call of Duty account will be deleted.
As Dexerto opined, Activision is not requiring proof of age so this requirement is easily bypassed, but their judgement may be too hasty. We checked Activision’s support page and couldn’t find a parent account system. In Activision’s terms of use, it says this:
Activision recommends that parents and guardians familiarize themselves with parental controls available on Devices they provide to their child and accompany their child if aged under 13 years of age, or the applicable age in your jurisdiction, when online.
We suspect that Activision shared that message about age requirements too early. They can’t confirm parental consent in all third party systems where you can play Call of Duty games in a way that would satisfy potential legal requirements. These terms should be updated in such a way to indicate that Call of Duty / Activision accounts will have their own parental consent systems, or even parent accounts.
As Dexerto says, without requiring proof of age, or a built-in parental consent system, younger players will easily bypass this by just lying about their age. And that wouldn’t make sense, if, as it appears, Activision and Microsoft were suddenly legally compelled to require age and parental consent.
As you can see, Epic Games, EA, and Roblox each have age verification and/or parental consent systems for you to use their accounts and play games on their platforms. These companies are following rules that were imposed on them by the FTC’s Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule,
This rule is based on the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, a US federal law that has been effective since 2000. Last July, the FTC required Genshin Impact to add age verification systems for this same reason. So, the FTC has been slow in enforcing these rules, but they are enforcing them.
We would be surprised if Activision doesn’t close the gap to ensure every Call of Duty player is providing their real age and/or confirmed they have parental consent. The FTC could go after them with penalties and fees if they really do neglect to put all of this into place. Of course, we have no ears on the ground over at Activision or the FTC, so we’re going to see how it plays out just like everyone else.
