There is!, one of the officially recognised and approved ways is credit card verification, however afaik only steam is doing that.

The default position if they weren't being coereced is always going to be "we don't comment" or "we don't know because we don't monitor"

The fact they're saying anything else means they're being forced to, and that they're being forced to means that ice is almost certainly using the tech for this

I can see valid reasons for connectivity, it's cheaper than a screen and parents could use it to monitor brushing habits,(hook it into home assistant?)

But absolutely no go on having anything online