New York State banning sex offenders from Xbox Live

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has announced the state has removed registered sex offenders from a host of online gaming services, including Xbox Live.

Some 3,500 accounts have been purged from various gaming services run by Microsoft, Apple, Blizzard, Electronic Arts, Disney, Warner Bros. and Sony.

Each company gave their full consent in the state’s action.

Xbox Live is the only service explicitly mentioned in the announcement, though it would seem PSN, Origin, Game Center, and Battle.net would make sense as well given the companies involved.

New York law requires sex offenders to provide the state with any email addresses and/or screen names, which can then be passed on to ‘certain websites’ so they can remove the potential threat from their networks.

This marks the first time the law has been applied to gaming.