Age Verification Feedback

There has been a VERY alarming change recently that Exposes users for their Verification status on the open beta. Explaination of problem: Once the user completes ID Verification, 18+ or <18, Their profile will now earn a Tiny checkmark next to the shield on their rank, informing other users of that users completion in ID Verification, Currently this is NOT able to be disabled This came almost completly unannounced, Only users within the community leaders discord (maybe others, im Unaware) were aware before it happened (Even tho we advised that this shouldn't be an option at all Users are still able to hide and show their badge, Now this can create a multitude of problems. 1: Accidental harassment: A Friend I've known for a week was hiding their badge, Which got me Hyper alerted to when I saw they had a checkmark, I knew they were over the age, but I saw the checkmark and I freaked out on them getting way to in their face because of my expressive concern of what their Real age was due to the checkmark (In the open beta, Age verified is removed, Only none and 18+ are applicable options now.) 2: Age verification was released to help seperate adults from minors, Now VRChat appear to be potentially marking it as a "Safety" feature. Problems: This checkmark allows users to identify people who have ID Verified and expose potentially them by calling the user out for hiding their own age (badge) to hangout with younger audiences to chill or potentially worse adult faking their age for any reason of personal gain, which is Extremely Alarming behaviour. VRChat patch notes for the open beta: "The Trust Shield icon on user profiles and nameplates will now show a checkmark for all users who have undergone age verification." ALL users are now subject to this change/checkmark. Now I personally Do not understand the reasons for Minors to beable to age verify at all, One thought that comes to mind are minor content creators (tiktok), The checkmark aids that, Yes that is the real xyz content creator to help users see that its not some imposter, This should NOT be marketed as the same system as Age verification for Adult/Minor seperation My biggest conflict In asking people about this topic, Why was this change made, It doesn't make sence when the feature was released as a Offering to adults to help improve communitys and build apon a Much stronger security from minors (Granted ID verification is not perfect, NO system is non-bypassable, errors happen). Lots of feedback I got from asking randoms in publics and friends, is that Users Should NOT be allowed to hide their verification badge Regardless of status if this checkmark were to stay for the future of VRChat, It can let anyone easily Identify someone who is either underage, or potentially hiding their age (leading to much worse). If users wish to hide their badge, I don't believe VRChat should restrict that (my personal believe) as it is a choice of freedom, VRChat has excelled in giving users the freedom to do and enjoy this game as they want. (Please don't change that for us, we all love you at heart) A direct quote from Tupper also mentioning this same topic within the Community leaders discord when directly asked about this topic (quote shortened): "The ability to control what information about you is shown to others might be considered a core value of VRChat in our "psuedonymity" value." A large slice of the users I got feedback from would like the 18+ badge to be forcfully enabled as this isn't a "feature" this is a SAFETY feature which is MASSIVLY more important then having freedom of choice, We all want safety from minors when enjoying the things we love most. My personal view: I DO NOT Regardless of personal believe believe ANY user should be allowed to hide their badge to hidden or changed status, If VRChat would like to remain giving users this option , Make the checkmark status Match that of the badge's status. Do NOT Split the system up as it was founded from ID Verification, Not as a way to improve trust, If VRChat has ideas in the future to change or add more ways to verify, Do it with more push towards the community before commiting. This open beta is beta for a reason, to test features and help VRChat expand and improve, This change from the community side looks Really weird and very unexpected, With all respect of my heart and others, This change shouldn't be implemented at any cause, Maybe in the future, another open beta when ID Verification is MUCH more set in stone, Right now this is a very alarming change and should not be finalized at any cost for the protection of minors and users alone. If at any point during this post I repeated myself, I do apologize, I wrote this under Very heavy mental stress and hope my points have come across clear and valid wording for everyone to understand

From the Beta launch (VRC+), we adopted an 18+ gated policy for our 24/7 instances and Parties to create a safe, dedicated environment for adult interactions. Although this move has led to a drop in overall traffic and user adoption, it sends a clear message about our commitment to proper moderation and user safety. In contrast, many groups in VRChat still operate non-gated 13+ instances, even while hosting adult activities, citing cost or fairness or not 'trusting' the system. This inconsistency is problematic. When spaces meant for adult interactions are not 18+ they should be scrutinised (by VRC moderation) to ensure that moderation is not merely user-driven. Our position is simple: if adult activities are taking place, they should do so in 18+ Gated instances that enforce strict standards for safety and moderation. This isn’t about sidestepping discussions by focusing on "against TOS", it’s about ensuring that instances, especially those open to younger users, are held to a higher standard to protect all participants. Will VRC be cracking down on adult content happening in non-gated instances specifically? If so, this (bans) could send a clear message that adult behaviour/content is not acceptable in non-gated (13+) instances.

I would love the ability to add the age verification, maybe a symbol on my nameplate. So when entering 18+ instances. I can quickly show my verification. Or being able to quickly see someone is of age without digging through a menu.

For better management of invite-only instances, it would be desirable to integrate an Player API call for UDON so that one could query the status of the age verification and have it displayed on a tablet, for example.

Per the updated FAQ for the announcement of Age Verification, I would like to suggest a hard limit of at least 1 or at most 2 alts who are eligible for the same age verification. People may have alts for various reasons, some being that they may not want people who know their main VRC account name (especially if that name exists outside of VRC on other platforms) and may not want to engage with the more hardcore gated content (cough18+STUFFcough) for fear of other users maliciously looking them up and then harassing them on other platforms or even irl. I realize that may be an extreme example, but I can imagine I am not the only one who has their VRC name as their other socials and tries to keep it as professional as possible especially those that are creators. And while you could just say... "Well. Then just verify your alt account." ...and I could just do that, but what if in doing so I lock my main account off from my favorite worlds and or avatars should those world/avatar creators put their creations behind Age Verification gates. I apologize in advance if this was hard to follow, I'm not the best at articulating my words, so I hope this made some sense... I would just greatly appreciate being able to keep my main and an alt with the same amount of access and not feel like I have a baby gate in my way on one or the other despite being a fully grown adult. -_-

I thought there was a canny for this already but I couldn't find it. I feel like the red for 18+ is a bit harsh and makes it feel a bit more scandalous than it actually is. I think changing it to purple or orange to mimic trust ranks would be a lot better and make it feel less like a marker you'd see on a sexually explicit website.

This will make everything so much better. Its simple and very easy to bring in.

It seems like that there is a heavy implication that age verification is only for instances only. I would like to see the option for group owners to additionally enforce age verification to join / retain membership for their group. Example scenario: I'm a group owner with five hundred members. At some point I would like to make my group require age verification in order for users to retain membership in the group. When requiring age verification, any member who has not verified their age on their VRChat account via Persona gets a notification stating that they have 7 days to verify, or else they will be automatically removed from the group.

Since users are now handing their own data and information over to vrchat and persona not these users that keep asking for users DOB in public lobbies, I am requesting that vrchat enforce this and make it against TOS because some people that have the new verification feature might feel safer if lobbies themselves were moderated as it obviously is healthier for vrchat but not mishandled in the way of asking for users DOB and things that could lead to illegal doxxing, The ethics of someone sat in a doorway while everyone else is enjoying themselves on the game completely destroys the whole objective they should be playing the game and having fun!

I’d like to propose an expansion of the age-gating feature to include other instance types beyond group instances. Not everyone has access to a group they can host events through, nor do some users typically host 18+ events in group instances; these events are usually held in private instances, such as Invite+. Allowing anyone to create an age-gated instance would potentially better serve the community, especially adults who prefer to interact with others in their general age group without needing to rely on group instances.