Google will know the age of millions and probably billions of people. Or, think they know that based on extensive data analysis and profiling. Of some users they suspect are not yet old enough to manage a Google account.
This group now receives a notification:
To manage your own Google Account, you must meet the minimum age requirement for the country associated with your account.
A user must respond within two weeks or the account will disappear. Pretty rigorous, but possibly something that will become more common. That a service verifies age. The background is protection of young people, but the consequence is mainly that the profiles of, in this case, Google are even more accurate, with a precise age.
In the Netherlands, according to Google, the minimum age is 16. If you are not yet old enough, you must set up supervision:
If you're not old enough to manage your own account, you can have a parent use their Google Account to set up supervision so you can continue using your account.
Separate wording "you can have a parent." At least it implies that parents are linked to children. And thus the parents must have a Google account.
To show that you are 16 you can use your credit card. Many young people will not have that. They can also send in an ID card. This will be destroyed by Google within 24 hours if it is determined that the user is old enough.
The question is what they do with the date of birth. By itself, the purpose for which this data is obtained is not to know exactly how old a user is. It may be that Google has included in their terms and conditions that your date of birth must be correct. Can the user agreement be the basis for processing the date of birth obtained through ID card?
Just checked, on Google I am more than 11 years older than I am. I often give as my date of birth 1-1-1970, but not here. In your Google account it says
"After you add your date of birth to your account, you cannot delete it."
So young people no longer get rid of their date of birth linked to their account. However:
"You can edit the date of birth and change who gets to see it, though."
I am not sure if editing includes changing the date. Google does give "UPDATE YOUR BIRTH DATE" as an option for the date of birth. Funny designation, like installing a new version of yourself. But so it seems that young people can enter a fake date if they wish, rather than the exact date of the ID.
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