Id checks don't do anything. They are a joke to fake. I was just responding to all the people who think it's so easy to "just supervise" your kids. They probably don't have kids.

Debit cards make sense. Though I would expect those to be usable as CCs for the verification part.

Again, it is 2026. Who the fuck is having kids now that was born and raised without the internet? Do the math on that.

The audience for this isn't even really parents of young children, it is mostly grandparents who vote as large blocs and are rather receptive to the 'save the kids' message in order to support whatever restrictions on technology they don't understand anyway.

Roblox is an actively predatory marketplace for parent's credit details.

I don't know what to tell you, I got my information from an Australian, and everything I've seen online confirms this.

I'm not sure the reason, but my guess is that a child can own a debit card, but can't own a credit card.

I’m an Australian

I don’t know an adult Australian who doesn’t at least have a Visa debit card, which more or less functions as the same.

Many use EFTPOS (and quite frankly our government should move that to a credit payment facility so we can ditch the American ones) but what that Aussie told you is not correct; in fact most of the larger retailers are pushing for cashless transactions.

Maybe not everyone can be tech savvy to the same degree, but everyone can be at least a little more so than they currently are. But it takes effort and willingness to learn. "I'm not good at this stuff" is too often used as an excuse instead of a motivator. Nobody wants to learn how, they just want someone else to fix it for them.

That's not to say that platforms don't have any issues, because they do. But supervision is also something that's severely lacking.

Not everyone has the ability to be tech savvy.

This is not true. Everyone has the ability to be tech savvy, except perhaps people with severe learning disabilities. Which, if that is the case, they shouldn't be having children, thus making them irrelevant to this discussion. [EDIT: Apparently I have to edit this here because people are locking in on this singular sentence and misunderstanding this calling it an argument for eugencis. That is not the argument, and never was. My point was that it would be irresponsible to raise children if you cannot learn how to use a computer because raising a child is so much more complex. Thus "shouldn't have children" in this context is the same as "shouldn't cross the street" when a car is coming: you can, but it would be very irresponsible.]

People have to care enough to actually try to learn. Learning tech is not difficult. But too many people don't care enough to want to even try. Because trying takes effort, and people these days only do whatever is easiest.

I mean, why actually parent your kid when you can sit them down in front of an iPad all day and make the government create laws that make businesses and schools responsible for raising them? Why take on the responsibility of your conscious choice to create a new human when you can just shove it all onto someone else who can take the blame when that inevitably fails? Kids take up your free time; why deal with that when you can drop them into the daycare called Roblox and then do whatever you actually wanted to do without needing to supervise your kid?

Additionally, sometimes you can't have a certain kind of parental control on something, thats true. The solution? Either the kid can use it while the parent actively watches them, or they aren't allowed to use it at all. Kid is visiting webpages they aren't supposed to? DNS block those sites. RaspberryPi community might even have something like a PiHole but for blocking outgoing network traffic to certain URLs, or maybe even a PiHole might work for that, IDK. Everything has a work around, but there are ways to make things difficult for someone that isn't eventually going to end up a computer science major.

Thank you for some further explanation.

Regardless of this, I believe these changes should be protested. None of this is ever looking out for children, and I'm sure if stuff like this succeeds over there, it'll just be a matter of time before we've got the same thing in the Americas.

Australians absolutely have credit cards. The previous poster seems to be getting their information from a single Aussie.

I couldn't find numbers specifically for the percentage of people who have at least one card, but the total number of CC accounts indicates that it's likely that the majority of working adults have one. That being said, credit card usage is low compared to other countries, I suspect because the government made the banks get together and create a universal electronic payment network in the 1980s, and we've all been used to paying virtually anywhere with our regular ATM cards, direct from our normal bank accounts, for decades. Credit cards are primarily used for, y'know, credit, and not just everyday transactions.

And for all the talk of the credit card companies, my personal experience with online payment processors has been that they often won't accept Cirrus or VISA Debit cards, or at least not cards issued outside their own country. So online shopping can be difficult without a credit card.

Steam has good parental controls and if you actually parent your children you can notice if it isn't quite set up correctly.

Roblox has significant parental control gaps. You can say that parents should just not let their children play Roblox but that really isn’t fair for the child.

To be honest, most platforms should be banned for children because they are all predatory. Anyone who has seen a mobile ad or seen the subscription pricing for most children’s apps would agree. A quality app for children is the exception.

Personally if I were in charge I would hold Google and Apple accountable for the trash advertised on their platforms. It’s not ok.

I just want to be clear, what my post meant to say is that it's (apparently) not as common to use a credit card like you would in North America (basically a necessity if you want to get a car, apartment house, etc).

This person that I got the information from was very up in arms about this, so I'm not sure why they would lie about this. Again, I looked this up after. You can find posts about people discussing this very issue from a month ago.

My whole point wasn't even about the credit cards. It's about the anti-privacy laws.

Not wrong. But the payment provider literally already has the age. Just force them to tell the shop whether the potential buyer is an adult or not. The solution is literally legally and technically trivial with basically no privacy impact.

So yeah, this is probably yet another case of not actually being about child safety at all.

I will say, as is alluded by discussion further on, there is a big lean from many toward Visa debit because it uses existing funds. Most I know who are working and even a few not working maintain credit cards however.

Or BNPL; I actually prefer it because there’s no maintaining credit fees and I can maintain it well enough.

It really depends on which Australia you qualify in. I’m in the B team so credit offerings aren’t something I’m really a part of, aside from BNPL. Many Aussies who ‘own’ homes run most of their lives through credit cards and home loan equity.

I'd wager this person who spoke about it to me is on the younger side - probably early 20s, so some more of this is making sense.

I also believe Steam doesn't allow Visa Debit - at least, it doesn't here, so perhaps it's the same over there.

I believe it does, in fact I can find out for sure because my son is on Steam I believe, and runs Visa debit

I’ll go ask him

Edit: yes he does and yes he adds funds to his Steam account using his Visa debit card

Glad I could help here ay, most of the time I’m fairly useless

The infamous nanny state.

Boooo

Appreciate it, thanks for checking!

Nonsense. There's plenty of credit cards stolen that don't belong to the kids' parents.

I'll chime in to say that I'm an Australian and on the flipside I don't know anyone with an actual credit card (not debit). So yeah you're also making a sweeping generalisation.

Also none of my debit cards work around the steam requirements, it depends on which bank you're with.

Are you sure that a Visa debit card is a credit card? I ask because in Canada we also have those (I have one) and it is specifically not a credit card. Rather, it is a debit card that is sometimes accepted by systems that ask for a credit card.

But then how would we spy on people? Think man, think!

No, just fucking Kangaroos. /s

Possibly. My sympathies as well.

Not in the same sense as North America. We have debit cards tied to bank accounts with a similar functionality as a credit card, but they often don't work at a negative balance. No one I know has a debit card that functions the same as a North American credit card. (I'm a Canadian living in Australia.)

I have a MasterCard debit card, but it doesn't work as an age verification for Steam.

Oh I get it, you somehow know what everyone can do. And you get to say who should and shouldn't have kids. Wait, are you God? No. Okay then, get off your soapbox and live in the real world.
Can't believe you think knowing what DNS is should be a requirement for having kids.

Most parents have a list a mile long of things they have to learn to raise their kids. There is only so much effort to go around. Most of the ones I know have tried to manage these things, but not only are there so many different sets of controls, but they are always changing. And of course what if the kid is at a friends house. Do you expect mom and dad to tag along so they can supervise? And when does the kid learn to be independent. You can't win as a parent. You are either accused of helicopter parenting or not putting in enough effort.
And really, these companies have teams of specialist trying to make their product as addictive and enticing to kids as possible. You expect parents to be able to fight that on hundreds of fronts a day. Kids will find a way no matter what parents do.

Um, me. No internet until I got to college. And even then, I was one of the early ones to get into it. It technically existed before that, but it wasn't much of a thing. If we got stuck on a game on our Commodore 64s we had to buy a magazine or order a hint book.
I have two kids who I still need to manage parental controls for. And most of the people I grew up with still have kids at home. Same for the ones I went to college with.
And I'm not even 50 yet.

Keep in mind that a lot of parents aren't tech savvy.

not a valid excuse. low-tech solutions can work just as well as high-tech ones.

1. sit with your child when they use the PC
2. no phone unless you are with them
3. explain to them why this is nonnegotiable, just don't say "because I told you so"

I recently gave my eldest a laptop with steam installed. I was able to set play schedules, time limits, and even shared specific games from my own library. all other access is locked down. except chat, because there weren't any controls for it (from what I saw). so, I added myself to their list and had a "chat" session with them to show them how it worked.

I then explained to them how dangerous this can be and how some people online might want to hurt them. so the rule is, don't talk to anyone unless you know them IRL and to come to me if anyone chats with them first.

low-tech solution and it builds trust with minimal risk.

But a debit card explicitly isn't a credit card, which is what's being talked about here

Online spaces can be a threat to a child. You'd probably better understand if you were a parent.

Visa debit cards are accepted by Steam's payment system and can be used for age verification.

Everyone has the ability to be tech savvy, except perhaps people with severe learning disabilities. Which, if that is the case, they shouldn’t be having children, thus making them irrelevant to this discussion.

oh I see, good old-fashioned eugenics

If I steal your credit card, you're my surrogate parent now. Thank you, daddy. 🫡

Those people are also overwhelmingly in political power across the Western World right now

Agreed on the case that everyone can become more tech savvy. Disagreed regarding the intellect-based eugenics argument.

Are you expecting parents ro tag along when their kid geso over to a friends house as a low tech solution?

And you highlighted that chat didn't have any controls... but now imagine a parent who doesn't even know what steam is. They likely also don't know it even has a chat feature.

Then let's add that many middle schoolers and up are handed a chromebook at school that they get to take home. And it's protections are pretty weak. But the kid needs it to do homework. So you are saying that parents should be sitting with them every second they are on any device. Sorry son, you can't do your homework right now because I have to make dinner. That's unreasonable.

I don’t understand why some of you want to give corporations a pass, and put all the blame on the parents.

I dont mean to say something that supports eugenics., because I don't.

Raising a child is way more complex than learning how to use a comupter. If a person has learning disabilities so severe that they cannot learn how to use a computer, then it would be wildly irresponsible for them to raise a child, because doing so is more complex. I am not saying that people with learning disabilities shouldn't be allowed have children. That was never an argument.

My whole point was that there is basically no excuse to not be tech savvy these days, except for an extreme case which is exempt from the argument.

Are you expecting parents ro tag along when their kid geso over to a friends house as a low tech solution?

no, I'm expecting their kids will understand what is acceptable behavior and make choices that are expected of them. I'm also expecting parents to talk with other parents and let them know what's strictly off limits, and if that's a problem provide alternative solutions like allowing your kids friends to hang out at your home instead.

And you highlighted that chat didn't have any controls... but now imagine a parent who doesn't even know what steam is. They likely also don't know it even has a chat feature.

as a parent do you know how to care for a child that has leukemia? no? then I guess in your opinion children just have to suffer because their guardian doesn't know what to do. if a parent can learn how to care for a child with cancer, you can learn how chat works.

Then let's add that many middle schoolers and up are handed a chromebook at school that they get to take home. And it's protections are pretty weak.

go to a better school. I pen tested my kids Chromebook, it's pretty rock solid and everything seemed to be controlled directly by the google school account management.

But the kid needs it to do homework. So you are saying that parents should be sitting with them every second they are on any device.

you should be doing this anyway to help guide and teach them. if you can't even do that then why did you even have children?

Sorry son, you can't do your homework right now because I have to make dinner. That's unreasonable.

as a parent it's your responsibility to make the time for them. if you can't do that it doesn't make you a bad parent necessarily, but it does make you an asshole.

I don’t understand why some of you want to give corporations a pass, and put all the blame on the parents.

because a corporation is about as responsible as a methed out drug dealer that just got out of prison. would you trust your child with that kind of person or are you just too stupid to understand why it's a poor choice?

from your tone you're either a child yourself or just a really shitty person who didn't understand the level of responsibility required to have children.

be better.

Shit dawg. Sounds like you probably shouldn't let your kids online then.

It uses the same function and the point stands…most Australians use a credit card or BNPL which is essentially the same.

It uses the same function and process as credit. Besides which, most Australians have a credit card of some form anyway.

Its an American cunt parroting this. Take a hike.

You must be a bot. Only a bot could deliver those contradictions in one message.

"don't go online" isn't the consequence of what I said

what ? im Aussie and im 60 I've been using credit cards as an Aussie for 35 years or so.

I don't know anyone who doesn't have a credit card, i have 3 with a $0 balance that are paid off automatically monthly (I use 1 exclusively and the others are backups). I earn a extra month of income in a HISA and get JB HiFi and Woolies/Coles gift cards as rewards. I also have 5 debit cards because they give them out like candy every time you open an account somewhere and never use any of them at all, aside from one occasionally at the ATM.

https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum/150?g=369