Earlier today, the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office released a statement recommending that game developers provide age checks for video games, to ensure safety for the children playing and to “comply with data protection laws.” To do this, the UK has listed multiple ways for developers to go about these changes that discourage companies from taking advantage of children’s understanding of contracts, as well as placing ways attempting to confirm their protection from games that might be too mature for them.

According to a report done by the ICO, 93% of children in the UK play video games for approximately 2-3 hours a day. To put things into perspective, according to YouthHealthData, in 2019, there were approximately 23 million people from the age of 0-19 in the UK. In the eyes of the ICO, without proper management, millions of children are at risk of being exposed to violent imagery and inappropriate content such as nudity or gambling. 

When it comes to protecting children from the potential risks of playing mature video games, the ICO has advised that video game companies identify with as much certainty as possible that the people playing are over 18 years old. Additionally, they also recommend that games incentivize children to take breaks and go outside by providing checkpoints in their games as well as prompts to encourage health and well-being practices.

As far as data protection laws, the ICO has prompted video game companies to prevent profiling for marketing, as children tend to be more susceptible to those types of advertisements. According to CSP, children either spend or influence the spending of over $175 billion worldwide, which is a large market for advertising to tap into. The CSP also mentions in marketing, it is difficult for children to understand the difference between knowing what product they want to buy and being manipulated into buying a product. This is why the UK’s Information Commissioner’s officer is recommending a limit on this style of marketing, as well as other ways that companies can manipulate kids for their benefit. The other potential way they recommend stopping this form of manipulation is asking for these companies to stop using “nudge techniques,” meant to incentivize children to make bad privacy decisions that could negatively affect them in the future.

By providing these recommendations, the ICO is noting their awareness of these issues, and is taking an attempt to prevent them from happening. In their statement, the ICO also states:

“Gaming plays a central part in so many young people’s lives, and the community and interaction around games can be a child’s first steps into the digital world. We want those first experiences to be positive ones, and the recommendations we’ve published today are there to support game developers.

“The Children’s Code makes clear that children are not like adults online, and their data needs greater protections.

We want children to be online, learning, playing and experiencing the world, but with the right protections in place to do so.”

While nothing has been strictly enforced as of now, these ideas being present in the UK’s sphere of video games could shine a light on children’s access to video games and help people take the necessary steps to ensure that children can play video games without concern for their safety.