Strict age checks have arrived on thousands of websites and apps since the UK's introduction of the Online Safety Act, and Britons are already coming up with creative ways to bypass them.
Aside from , a critically-lauded PlayStation 5 game could be the key to swerve these tough new age checks. According to, the realistic graphics in games like Death Stranding 2: The Beach from Sony can be used to bypass the age verification process.
Using the built-in photo mode, players have found they can take a snap of an age-appropriate in-game character like Sam Porter Bridges (played by US actor Norman Reedus, best known for roles in The Boondock Saints and The Walking Dead) to then use this close-up shot to bypass face-scanning verifications on apps like Reddit and Discord.
A photo of Death Stranding's main character is used for age verification on Discord using the game's internal photo mode
Since the age check requires you to move your face and follow instructions like "Close your mouth. Making sure you're a real person," a single photo of someone aged over 18 won't work. But since players can control individual aspects of the characters in Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, it seems to pass the test.
According to PS5 players, once the clips from Death Stranding was submitted on Reddit and Discord, it took less than a minute for it to be accepted, granting access to age-restricted content.
This hack works due to the high resolution of the facial scans used for characters throughout the hit game. Players can manipulate character poses, lighting, and even add noise to simulate different visual settings.
Multiple people within Death Stranding 2: On the Beach are played by notable Hollywood actors, with Léa Seydoux, Margaret Qualley, and Elle Fanning joining Norman Reedus and others. This only adds to the realism of the faces used throughout the game.
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|Hideo Kojima, who created Death Stranding, leveraged 4D scans for key characters in the game to preserve subtle muscle movements and facial expressions of the actors — resulting in an ultra-realistic image
The trick with Death Stranding isn't the only way that Britons are bypassing the new checks. Reports suggest people have also used images of humna faces generated by ChatGPT and other Artificial Intelligence (AI) 'bots to bambooze the systems.
For those who missed the announcement, the Online Safety Act adds strict age verification barriers to thousands of popular websites, forums, and social media services, where you might find pornographic material, content promoting self-harm or suicide, eating disorder-related material, extreme violence or gore, dangerous stunts and challenges, online bullying, and more.
As of July 25, websites and online services that fall under the purview of the Online Safety Act, including social media sites like Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, Discord, etc. have introduced safety measures put in place to protect children from illegal or harmful content. As a result, multi-step age verification procedures have rolled out across social platforms and other sites to screen children from viewing certain content.
from DeathStranding
The new verification systems require UK users to submit either a government-issued ID, such as a passport, or a selfie through third-party verification companies across the affected platforms. You can also use bank accounts, email addresses and other methods to prove your age.
The Online Safety Act targets multiple categories of content, which will now blocked by default for all unverified users:
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|VPNs can make it appear as if you're located outside of the jurisdiction of the Online Safety Act
Users have also taken advantage of virtual private networks (VPNs), .
When you connect to a VPN, everything you do online is re-routed via the provider's servers. If you choose a VPN server in the same country, this serves as a way to encrypt and mask everything you do online, including the websites you visit, the amount of time spent on each service, and much more.
If you choose a server based in another country, VPNs can make it appear as if you're located outside of the UK — outside of the jurisdiction of the Online Safety Act.
If you choose a VPN server in another country, websites can no longer detect that you're browsing from within the UK, so the mandatory age checks and other restrictions imposed by Online Safety Act vanish.
This is no different to what would happen if you jumped on a plane on holiday and tried to log in to any of these services from abroad. It's comparable to using a foreign phone box rather than your own mobile – the recipient can't identify your true location or identity.