I do not think D&D Beyond is a place to discuss politics, but I am seeing a lot of posts essentially dismissing the nexus between D&D Beyond and the recent global legislations.  Without commenting on the actual efficacy or my personal beliefs on the laws, or any of the political nature of the laws themselves, I did want to provide a different, factual background that folks should at least keep in the back of their mind.  To be clear, the goal of this post is not to start any political discussion - and I am not going to engage in any, even if baited - but merely inform individuals about an issue that is flying under the radar and directly implicates D&D Beyond in a way I do not believe most realize. 

I do a lot of work on cases involving child trafficking and abuse, and probably deal with things on a daily basis more horrifying than most folks on D&D Beyond are capable of imagining.  In the field of human trafficking, the largest rise we are seeing used by individuals seeking to exploit children, for anything ranging from inappropriate conversations and pictures to actual trafficking, is on gaming websites, forums, and MMOs - pretty much any gaming related site with a social component.

Why is that?  Parents have been warned about the dangers of places like Facebook for years and years, but many of them - even ones who are otherwise pretty savvy about their internet usage, do not think about the social component of a place like Discord, D&D Beyond, etc.  These are often sites where the primary purpose is something other than the social component, so parents might not fully register the same exact dangers from places like Facebook can exist.  Gaming sites also tend to have a fairly high density of individuals that are a bit socially awkward, lonely, or otherwise vulnerable - not that the perception of all gamers as shut-ins are accurate, but that subsection of our community does exist. To an individual who preys on children, that makes gaming sites a perfect hunting ground - relatively low parental oversight and a higher rate of potential victims. 

I would love to say that D&D Beyond is different from major social media sites.  Would love to believe there is no need for protections on this fun little site about playing D&D.  But I cannot.  And, from professional experience, I look at places like Adohand's Kitchen - an insular community, skewing underage, where individuals regularly post about their insecurities and desire to make human connections - as (due to no fault of Wizards) an extremely likely target for predators. 

So, maybe before we be a bit dismissive of the nexus between these kinds of laws and D&D Beyond, we should at least consider there are other perspectives and risks - and that the reasoning of "D&D Beyond is probably not a threat" dismissal is a significant part of the reason D&D Beyond is the exact kind of site predators would be inclined to target. 

Quote from Arenlor >>

The information is not being collected by D&D Beyond. It is being collected by our partner k-ID.

Are you referring even to the bday / region? Or just the additional info K-ID would need?

I am relieved to hear that the K-ID service at least pay lip service to data privacy. 

I am not relieved overall, because it is still murky to me what features could be locked behind this system. Could my age or location be used to lock me out of my purchased content? Could it be used to restrict what I say on the forum? Could it be used to prevent me from playing a barbarian on Maps because the local law says so?

Quote from Sillvva >>

Quote from Arenlor >>

The information is not being collected by D&D Beyond. It is being collected by our partner k-ID.

 To add to this, k‑ID doesn't store the info it collects either. It only stores the verification result, whether you passed or failed. From their privacy policy:

k-ID does NOT store the information that you provide to prove your age and/or parent/guardian status. All we store is the result of the validation process (i.e., whether you passed or failed). In the case of Facial Age Estimation (“FAE”) technology provided by Privately, the facial image you provide is processed solely on your device – we don’t actually see any faces that are processed via this solution.

And all D&D Beyond gets is the verification result. No PII is stored or shared.

It might be a good idea to include this on the page that asks for this personal information. It currently provides no clarification on what is done with the collected data.

Quote from Gnomarchy >>

I am not relieved overall, because it is still murky to me what features could be locked behind this system. Could my age or location be used to lock me out of my purchased content? Could it be used to restrict what I say on the forum? Could it be used to prevent me from playing a barbarian on Maps because the local law says so?

It's not all that useful to ask what 'could' be done. In theory, just about anything on the site could be age-gated. In practice, D&D Beyond wants to do the minimum possible amount of work, so the question I would ask is what their current intent is. Given that D&D Beyond has never been a site that publishes adult content, my guess would be (already existing) shop restrictions and possibly restrictions on the more social media-y aspects of the site such as forums and DMs.

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

Quote from Gnomarchy >>

I am not relieved overall, because it is still murky to me what features could be locked behind this system. Could my age or location be used to lock me out of my purchased content? Could it be used to restrict what I say on the forum? Could it be used to prevent me from playing a barbarian on Maps because the local law says so?

It's not all that useful to ask what 'could' be done. In theory, just about anything on the site could be age-gated. In practice, D&D Beyond wants to do the minimum possible amount of work, so the question I would ask is what their current intent is. Given that D&D Beyond has never been a site that publishes adult content, my guess would be (already existing) shop restrictions and possibly restrictions on the more social media-y aspects of the site such as forums and DMs.

 
Well sure. I wasn't so much alluding to WotC's agency here. If a law is passed that says 43-year-old Michiganders are not permitted to use the spell "Silvery Barbs", WotC has very little to say about it. I am just curious to know what levers are available and in place for WotC to respond to these laws, so as to work out why this was all deemed necessary in the first place. 

Because from my point of view, if WotC wants to do the minimum required to follow the law, then there must be some reason that the minimum requires even this measure. You know what I mean?

Just to reiterate, I am not angry or concerned with WotC's behavior here insofar as we live by laws that must be followed.