MetaCity Announced Mandatory Avatar Age Verification Requiring Real-World ID Upload — Platform Has 72 Hours to Respond to Regulator Deadline

MetaCity published a policy update this morning announcing that all 847 million active accounts will be required to complete avatar age verification by uploading a government-issued ID document within the next 90 days. The announcement came with no advance notice to users and was issued in response to a regulatory enforcement deadline from the Digital Spaces Protection Authority, which gave MetaCity 72 hours to announce a compliance plan for age-gating requirements that have been in effect for 14 months. MetaCity's compliance plan is the announcement. The 90-day verification window, the ID upload requirement, the data retention policy for uploaded documents, and the consequences for accounts that do not verify have been described in a 4,200-word policy document that MetaCity published simultaneously with the announcement.

The Digital Spaces Protection Authority's age-gating requirements took effect in March 2025. They require platforms hosting virtual environments to verify that users accessing content designated for mature audiences are of legal age in their jurisdiction. MetaCity has been operating under those requirements for 14 months without implementing a verification system, citing ongoing technical development. The DSPA issued a final compliance warning in April and set a 72-hour deadline for MetaCity to announce a concrete implementation plan. The announcement published at 9:00 AM this morning is that plan. Its core requirement — a government-issued ID upload for all 847 million accounts regardless of the content they access — is significantly broader than the DSPA's regulation, which requires age verification only for users attempting to access mature-designated content.

The 4,200-word policy document accompanying the announcement describes the verification process in detail. Users will be directed to a verification portal operated by Veridian Systems, a third-party identity verification provider. Users upload a photograph of a government-issued ID document. Veridian processes the document and returns a verified age status to MetaCity. The ID document itself is retained by Veridian for 'fraud prevention and compliance purposes' for a period of seven years. MetaCity retains the verified age status — not the document — indefinitely. The policy document does not specify what security standards Veridian applies to stored ID documents, what happens to stored documents if Veridian is acquired or breached, or whether users can request deletion of their documents after verification. It notes that these questions 'may be directed to Veridian's privacy team.'

90 Days. A Government ID. 847 Million Accounts. No Advance Notice.

Community response to the announcement has been extensive and organized with unusual speed. By noon, protest events had been announced in 14 districts. The MetaCity Community Forum thread on the announcement reached 890,000 comments within three hours, making it the fastest-growing forum thread in platform history. The Digital Rights Collective, a MetaCity advocacy group with 2.3 million members, filed for an emergency injunction against the policy's implementation timeline at 11:00 AM, arguing that the 90-day window and the breadth of the requirement — covering all users, not just those accessing mature content — exceeds the scope of the DSPA regulation MetaCity cited as justification. The injunction filing is pending review. MetaCity has not commented on the filing.

The policy's scope has generated the most sustained criticism. The DSPA regulation requires age verification for mature content access. MetaCity's implementation requires age verification for all platform access — a universal requirement applied to accounts that have never accessed and may never access mature-designated content. MetaCity's policy document justifies this by stating that 'consistent verification across all accounts provides the most reliable compliance framework and prevents circumvention through alternative accounts.' Several legal observers have noted that this justification, while operationally logical from MetaCity's perspective, describes a compliance architecture that goes substantially beyond what the regulation mandates. The DSPA has not commented on whether MetaCity's implementation exceeds or meets the regulation's requirements. That determination may be left to the injunction proceeding.