this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2025
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California passes law requiring age verification checks for all operating systems | Governor Newsom signs bills to further strengthen California’s leadership in protecting children online (www.gov.ca.gov)
submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/privacy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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AB-1043 "Age verification signals: software applications and online services."

Text https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1043

Other info https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1043

California AB 1043 signed. Mandatory os-level, device-level, app store, and even developer-required age verification for all computing devices.

Edit: altered title from "ID check" to "Age Verification check"

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[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 29 points 5 days ago (5 children)

Yeah reading through the bill I'm feeling better about it.

Provide an accessible interface at account setup that requires an account holder to indicate the birth date, age, or both, of the user of that device for the purpose of providing a signal regarding the user’s age bracket to applications available in a covered application store.

Where an "Account Holder" is:

(1) “Account holder” means an individual who is at least 18 years of age or a parent or legal guardian of a user who is under 18 years of age in the state. (2) “Account holder” does not include a parent of an emancipated minor or a parent or legal guardian who is not associated with a user’s device.

The way I read this, this bill actually assumes the person installing it is over 18 and an adult. (Let's not argue with them on that). It's simply saying that "You need to provide a way to create child accounts, and your app stores will need to respect that).

What I do not see is that OS's must validate IDs or anything.

provide an accessible interface that allows an account holder to indicate the birth date, age, or both, of the user of that device for the purpose of providing a signal regarding the user’s age bracket to applications available in a covered application store.

"Mom or dad need to set the age bracket for junior so that apps rated NSFW can't be downloaded"

This title does not require the collection of additional personal information from device owners or device users other than that which is necessary to comply with Section 1798.501.

Honestly, rereading it, this is how I would do age protection if I were to do it. Rereading this multiple times now, this might be the most privacy safe way to validate age, shut up lawmakers who cry "what about teh children!!!" and let us adults move on in peace.

You buy jr a laptop, it'll ask on account creation how old they are. That'll be a flag they can't modify that will be passed into browsers and app stores. That will prevent children from accessing content they can't. Adults then continue on. Jr grows up and either buys his own device, or mom and dad swap their account to adult.

[–] eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Hopefully you're right, and the law doesn't allow for an expansion of this to include "just give google your id bro".

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 10 points 5 days ago (1 children)

You can read it, it's in your link. From what I read it explicitly says they cannot gather more info than they need.

[–] eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Oh I know, but I'm hoping that Google can't find another law that enables it. They have money for good lawyers for these things.

[–] hobovision@mander.xyz 4 points 4 days ago

Google could do it right now if they wanted to. It's not against the law to require your customers to provide PII to use services. It just opens them to bad press, liability for mishandling the data, and potentially liability for knowing a user is a minor and showing them mature content anyway.

[–] flamingos@feddit.uk 8 points 4 days ago

This seems way less insane than the 'let's model online age verification on pubs' laws we've seen in places like the UK and France.

[–] recklessengagement@lemmy.world 8 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

That actually doesn't sound bad.

If I understand this correctly, its not about adding ID requirements. Its just about adding the functionality to every part of the software stack to go "oh, this is a kid, let's not show them ads for adult apps or new stories about mass murder" etc etc.

Less of a "papers, please" check, more of a robust "you must be this tall to ride" check.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

Exactly, which is how I and many privacy respecting groups have been begging for it. We know the ultimate issue, they want nsfw off the internet. This shuts down the whole "it's for the children" bs without us needing to give away who we are at all. This is the most sane way to age gate. , and they won't be able to hide behind that excuse anymore.

[–] fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 5 points 5 days ago

Except because it's in bad faith this won't work they'll demand it could be made stricter and use its existence as precident that we should obey them

[–] veniasilente@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 days ago

Oh boy you are so cute and innocent, believing they'd even want to hide.

[–] 0x0@lemmy.zip 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

If parents want nanny software they can install it on windows, no need to forcefeed this bullshit on everyone else.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech -1 points 4 days ago

It's going to be a drop-down that a parent can select on account creation. No one is being forced into it, unless mom bought your device.

[–] greybeard@feddit.online 2 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I've always felt like the whole age verification thing was simply a failure of the OS. Yes, kids could potentially setup their own device, but most likely it is being setup by a parent. The parent should be able to create a the admin account, then an account for the child flag as a child account. The browser and any apps could then read that flag and act appropriately.

It seems like a simple solution that would be rather easy to implement for any multi-user OS. For single user OSs like Android and iOS, they have user accounts to fall back on that can work exactly the same.

This puts the control in the parents hands, and responsibility too.

[–] vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 days ago

Pretty sure this is what the PS3 did at least in affect. You could flag a profile for child use and it'd block games with certain ratings based off the settings, then you could just password the adult accounts. Good way to stop little Timmy from playing GTA at least, hell I think you could also put in exclusions so if you wanted to allow an specific game it wouldn't be blocked.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 1 points 4 days ago

I like it for that reason too. If you're so worried about the children, then you can check a box that says this is a minor's account. If a parent can't be bothered with that then it's on them, and should be on them.