Digital safety age signals overview

The Windows Age APIs provide a privacy-preserving mechanism for apps to determine the age group and age verified status of the signed-in user. These APIs are designed for apps that need to comply with child safety regulations without requiring the app to collect, store, or process date of birth or other personally identifiable information. Apps use these signals to adapt content, features, or access controls based on a user's age and verified status — without needing to implement their own age verification system.

What are age signals?

Age signals are values that the Windows provides to applications when a user takes an action to access age-related or restricted content. The caller application makes a request to access the user's age group and/or age verified status to inform the appropriate end-user experience.

An age signal does not directly expose the user's age or date of birth. Instead, it provides an age range that the app can use to make content decisions. The GetUserAgeRangeAsync API offers the following age groups:

• Under 10
• 10-12
• 13-15
• 16-17
• 18+

Digital Safety APIs

Note

These APIs are documented ahead of availability. They aren't enabled at runtime yet, and are planned to be turned on in a future release later this year. Until then, calls return an unknown age range (null) and an unavailable verification status, so make sure your app falls back to its default behavior or age-gate.

GetUserAgeRangeAsync

Returns the user’s age range as a UserAgeRange object with Lower and Upper properties.

Age group	Return values
Under 10	{0, 9}
10-12	{10, 12}
13-15	{13, 15}
16-17	{16,17}
18+	{18, INT32_MAX}
Unknown	null

When the result is null, apps should fall back to their default behavior or age-gate mechanism.

GetAgeVerificationStatusAsync

Returns the user's age verification status to indicate whether the user's age has been independently verified by the identity provider. This API is available to both 1P and 3P callers. Possible outputs include:

• Verified
• Unverified
• OptedOut
• TemporarilyUnavailable
• NotApplicable

Caller identity

The Digital Safety platform validates the calling app's identity before returning signal values. This prevents unauthorized apps from querying another app's safety settings. Your app must be properly registered and identified to receive meaningful signal data.

When to use age signals

Use age signals when your app:

• Displays user-generated content, social features, or communication tools that may not be appropriate for all ages.
• Offers in-app purchases or virtual currencies where age restrictions are relevant.
• Streams or plays media content with maturity ratings.

How age signals work at a high level

Privacy and data handling

Age signals are designed with privacy as a core principle:

• No personal data is exposed. The API does not return the user's age, date of birth, or family relationship details.
• Age groups are generic. They communicate common age groups for various use cases such as gaming or regional law.

Platform requirements

Requirement	Details
Minimum OS version	Windows 11
API surface	Win32 COM (C/C++)
User context	Must run in a user session with a Microsoft account signed in
App registration	App identity must be established with the Digital Safety platform

See also

• Microsoft Family Safety
• Security and identity development for Windows apps