A week ago, the British government passed the Online Safety Act, aimed at protecting children from harmful content such as depictions of suicide, pornography, etc. Despite its seemingly good intentions, this initiative also significantly limits privacy when using the Internet. There are already numerous posts where users complain about needing to verify their age, for instance, to access PornHub. However, some workarounds have been found. One such method is using photo mode in some games (like Death Stranding 2) to create realistic adult images.
According to Tez2, age verification (17 years for the US, 18 for Europe) might soon be required in GTA Online. Without verification (will it really require providing IDs?), some features like text chat, sending SMS, Snapmatic, or even accessing the game entirely might be blocked.
The first country expected to see such implementation is the UK (Rockstar North, the developers, are based in Scotland). Later, this practice will spread to other regions.
Source: gta.com.ua