Parental over-ride of Child Account restrictions (by game)

[JaglanBeta]

My high / secondary school age son used pocket money to buy a Battlefield V code to redeem (or rather gave me the money after I bought it).

I've just set my EA account up, but I'm struggling to understand the implications of setting up a child/teen account.

He's younger than the 16 age rating but I'm OK for him to play with his friends, I feel he is old enough (he's finished Dishonoured after all).

So, will EA stop him playing, and if so can I give express permission per game?.

Or, does EA become the defacto last say parent and tell me what my child can or can't play?

My understanding is the options are

a) real age account and hope I can grant exceptions

b) lie about DoB, which to be honest a lot of other parents I know have done as the parental controls are so onerous and inflexible that they, ironically, give you no control..  

During lockdown we made the mistake of giving him a properly aged Google YouTube account.

As a result he was the only kid in his class unable to use his own PC login to access the onine lessons uploaded by his teachers. Don't want to make the same mistake again.

thanks

[EA_Darko · Accepted solution]

Hey @JaglanBeta if your child is not old enough for a normal EA account then you will need to set them up an underage account.

There is no way for you to allow the account additional access to elements of games.

Creating an underage account with a fake date of birth is a breach of the EA TOS and if caught the account will be locked and made unaccessible.

Darko 

[EA_Darko]

Hey @JaglanBeta when creating an account you must enter the real date of birth as if you enter a fake one to try and bypass EA restrictions then you can run into issues later.

Darko

[JaglanBeta]

Hi,

Thanks for the really quick reply.

So if I create a real-age account for him, will the system automatically stop him playing the game he paid (me) for?

If so, can I then over-ride any EA imposed restrictions and give parental authorisation for games I feel he can play?

For me this what parental control is about, me being in full control to apply or remove restrictions as I see fit. But I can't find any information on those kind of parental features.

There's info on upgrading an account Child to teen to adult, but none on customising permissions within those tiers.

As I say, we got burned by the YouTube account his email is linked with, though we got round that by....yes, updating (lying about) his DoB age just so he could  actually do his online schoolwork.

thanks,

PS : I'm also not terribly comfortable giving a real birth date of a child in the age of rampant data security breaches, especially for a system that may be active and hackable for a further 20yrs or more. It's part of his identity, but I think that's another topic!)

[EA_Darko]

Lying about the DOB to bypass EA account restrictions is a breach of our TOS @JaglanBeta and something than can result in an account not being accessible.

You can find all the info related to creating an underage account here: https://help.ea.com/en/help/account/set-up-child-ea-account/

Darko 

[JaglanBeta]

Hi,

Thanks again for the quick reply.

The page linked shows how to set up a child/teen account, but does not give any info on what level of customisation and control I have aftewards.

We appear to have focussed on the accuracy and compliance of the stored account data, rather than the original functionality question.

So very simply, can a parental account over-ride the default age restrictions to specific games held on a dependent child / teen account?

e.g. if a particular game is rated 16 and he is e.g. 14 can I as his parent give express permission and to authorise him to play it if I think it's OK?

Jon

[EA_Darko · Accepted solution]

Hey @JaglanBeta if your child is not old enough for a normal EA account then you will need to set them up an underage account.

There is no way for you to allow the account additional access to elements of games.

Creating an underage account with a fake date of birth is a breach of the EA TOS and if caught the account will be locked and made unaccessible.

Darko 

[JaglanBeta]

Hi,

Thank again for the swift response, that is at least 100% clear.

For clarification should anyone find this post when searching for the same stuff, the summary as I now understand it is :

1) The linked parental account will not have the ability to authorise specific over age games.

2) EA will decide what a child/teen can and cannot play, becoming the defacto online parent for the purposes of EA underage accounts. There is no scope to apply the judgement of the actual parent.

3) The child / teen will have no way to play games or access game features rated higher than their registered age

4) It is a suspendable offence to falsify that age - if discovered you'll lose access to everything you've already paid for (both the parent and presumably all associated child / teen accounts)

The EA code from  Amazon was pretty nominal but is wasted as he won't be able to use it.

I'll refund him and take the hit, or maybe try the game for myself.

We'll steer clear of buying any more EA games that require an online account for now.

2 general comments

a) Technically speaking this is really a parental restriction and monitoring system, as there seems to be no scope for actual parental control. It should be described as such.

b) Unfortunately I do not find it surprising that an American tech company thinks it knows best how to parent my child to the extent of actively over-riding my own judgement. This "judge, jury and gatekeeper to the online world" role US tech giants are assuming is a trend that is getting worse over time, heaven help us all in 20yrs time.....

[EA_Darko]

Hey @JaglanBeta to answer your questions

1. No you cannot grant access to games on a game-by-game basis
2. This is incorrect, an underage account will be able to access games rated for that age. They will not be able to access adult titles as per the rating standard
3. This is correct, features such as online elements will not be accessible
4. Telling lies to get around our account system can result in action being taken.

To the others:
This is all called out on our account creation page for underage accounts. Keeping your child safe is something EA takes seriously, as such underage accounts are designed fo children with each account aging up upon reaching the relevant age in the country of residency.

This is nothing about over riding judgment, it is about keeping children safe. In fact, if you take a look at all the tech companies, most for example set a base age of 13 before an account can be created.

If you have issues with how this works I would recommend speaking with your government to lobby for changes to the law governing how data is retained and how this applies to children.

Going to go ahead and lock this now as there is nothing more that we can do to assist.

Darko