Microsoft is preparing a new feature for Windows 11 that will probably get people talking. The operating system will soon be able to indicate your age range to the applications installed on your PC.
But rest assured (or not), this doesn’t mean Windows 11 will suddenly ask you for an ID or a selfie to use your computer. The way Microsoft plans to work is a little more subtle than that.
Windows 11 will be able to indicate your age group to applications
To put all this in motion, Microsoft is preparing two new APIs for Windows 11. Called “Windows Age APIs,” they will allow apps to ask the system what age group the logged-in user is in.
Microsoft has planned five:
- less than 10 years;
- 10 to 12 years old;
- from 13 to 15 years old;
- from 16 to 17 years old;
- 18 years and older.
If you are 35 years old, for example, an app won’t know that you are exactly 35 years old. Windows will simply tell you that you are 18 or older.
Developers will also be able to see if your age has been verified or not. And it is a very important detail, you will quickly understand why.
Obviously, this is the question we can ask ourselves, although, in reality, the answer is obvious. To determine your age group, Windows 11 will rely on your Microsoft account, to which a date of birth is already associated.
However, there is no guarantee that this date is correct. After all, anyone can provide a fake date of birth when creating their account. Of course, Microsoft has thought about this little detail and that’s why it plans to differentiate between a simply declared age and a truly verified age.
The firm has already begun implementing an age verification system for Microsoft and Xbox accounts in several countries. Depending on the region, various methods may be offered: age estimation from a selfie, ID card or even connection to a government identification system, such as Singpass in Singapore.
Microsoft specifies that its partners process the documents, selfies and other information used to verify your age. The latter are responsible for the verification and then indicate to Microsoft that it has been carried out. Microsoft then maintains this status in your account, without recovering your personal documents that were used to prove your age.
For now, This proactive check is only offered in Australia, Brazil, Singapore and the United Kingdom..
Once your age is verified, Windows 11 will be able to tell applications that you belong, for example, to the 18 or older group and that this information has been verified.
What happens if you use a local account?
Microsoft has also planned for this scenario. If Windows cannot determine the user’s age range, the API simply returns an unknown value. The app will then need to apply its default behavior or use its own age verification system.
In fact, Microsoft indicates in its documentation that its new APIs require a Windows session with a connected Microsoft account. Without it, Windows doesn’t have the information it needs to recover your age range.
There is still a question for users who, like me, log into Windows with a local account, but still use a Microsoft account in certain applications. Microsoft has not yet clearly specified how this case will be handled.
We will probably have to wait for the activation of these new APIs to get the answer. At the moment, they are not yet functional and systematically return with an unknown age.
What will this system be used for?
The objective is above all to prevent age controls from multiplying. If multiple apps need to know if you’re an adult, you won’t have to provide ID, selfie, or other personal information to each app.
Instead, they will be able to ask Windows 11 directly if it is of the required age and has been verified. Therefore, an app that simply wants to know if you are over 18 will not need to know your date of birth or retrieve a copy of your ID.
For privacy, this is quite good as it avoids transmitting the same personal information to multiple services. But there is still another side of the coin (and no less important): you have to agree to trust Microsoft with information related to your age and trust that it will manage it correctly… And here, let’s say that everyone will form their own opinion.
A new feature planned for later in 2026
At the moment, these new APIs are not yet active in Windows 11. Microsoft has them already documentedbut currently they return an unknown age range and an unavailable verification status.
We’ll have to wait a little longer before seeing all this work. Microsoft plans to enable its new APIs in a future version of Windows 11 later this year, without giving a specific date.
Then we will know which applications will decide to use them and, above all, how they will use this information.
