The bill's child safety framing is doing a lot of work to normalize what is, in practice, a government-linked identity layer baked into every device you own before you open a single app.

New York just proposed the most invasive state-level age verification bill the US has seen. Senate Bill S08102 would extend age verification requirements down to the device itself: internet-connected devices, operating system providers, and app stores would all be required to implement what the bill calls “age assurance” before users can access their own hardware and software ecosystems.

Edit:

Meta is one of the lobbyists for the age verification bill.

Into the Metaverse: The Money and Motivations Behind Meta’s App Store Gambit

In May 2025, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and Representative John James (R-MI) introduced the App Store Accountability Act (ASAA), a bill that would require app stores to verify users’ ages and obtain parental consent for users under 18. Meta has bankrolled a wildly expensive lobbying campaign to enact ASAA and its state-level analogs, and instead of recoiling in horror at taking kid privacy advice from Meta, some lawmakers are credulously going along with it.

Confirmed by Bloomberg : Meta Clashes With Apple, Google Over Age Check Legislation

The struggle has pitted Meta Platforms Inc. and other app developers against Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, the world’s largest app stores. Lobbyists for both sides are moving from state to state, working to water down or redirect the legislation to minimize their clients’ risks.

This year alone, at least three states — Utah, Texas and Louisiana — passed legislation requiring tech companies to authenticate users’ ages, secure parental consent for anyone under 18 and ensure minors are protected from potentially harmful digital experiences. Now, lobbyists for all three companies are flooding into South Carolina and Ohio, the next possible states to consider such legislation.

in addition, there are Over 50 Child Advocacy Groups Unite to Demand App Store Accountability

  • bluGill@fedia.io
    1·
    2 hours ago

    Age verification needs to be done by someone (probably a government agency, though it need not be) who has verified age. That someone needs to be legally liable (and able to enforce) the tracking rules for anyone who uses their system to verify age. You want to verify someone’s age with me, first you need to prove you are following our privacy rules - including our regular random audits.

    It needs a better cryptologist than me to get the details of the above system right.

    Of course if even if you have the above I’m not sure how you will get anyone to use it. Perhaps we can have schools put a hard block on any system that doesn’t follow the above system, but the vast majority of the web isn’t going to opt-in. Note in particular this includes a lot of the useful sites I as a parent want my kids to access so it won’t help me as a parent.