7 ms·

California age verification bill backed by Google, Meta, OpenAI heads to Newsom

79 points by heavyset_go 1y ago

anenefan 1y ago
The bill is a bad idea. Of course big tech likes it, more id equals higher value data they can scrape. When (if?) it arrives it'll be two seconds before some places on the web will need more to be sure the person who set up the entire phone or app is actually not under age, thus the person setting it up will have to provide id ... the bill is a anonyphobes wet dream come true.
- klysm 1y ago
  It’s also regulatory capture. Harder for competitors to meet regulatory barriers
LorenPechtel 1y ago
Age gate means identification of the individual. Of course big tech loves that. You can have age gating or you can have privacy. Same as you can have porn filtering or you can have privacy.
- zelse 1y ago
  In practice, 100%. In theory we could likely design "good enough" anonymous systems that work like buying alcohol or tobacco in most countries (buy a scratch token in cash at a corner store after showing ID, picked at random from a box of them - contains a number, possession of which is theoretical proof that you had your ID verified at purchase)...but of course, the real purpose of age-gating is exerting a chilling effect, so we'll never hear about privacy-preserving methods. (NB: I am firmly opposed to any of this. The solution for parents concerned about their kids is parenting and parental controls, not giving authoritarians of all stripes the means to snoop and ban whatever they decide is obscene or troubling.)
  - dh2022 1y ago
    This approach could create a black market where,say, high school seniors would buy these tokens and resell to high school sophomores/juniors.
- readams 1y ago
  Big tech has generally not loved this because they know that adding friction like id checks massively reduces attach rates. This is watered down enough that it's likely seen as a lesser evil.
  - BoredPositron 1y ago
    A new account on Facebook, Instagram or Google/YouTube will usually instantly get restricted and triggers either ID or Phone verification anyways.
- nicce 1y ago
  Porn sites have been there almost 20 years. Why it is problem right now? Is there extensive recent research about it? Or now we just have the capability?
  - nick__m 1y ago
    I remember pop-up porn adds started to appears around 1995 or so and 1995 is 30 years away...
    - privatelypublic 1y ago
      I ember them showing up and then being limited to super shady sites PDQ. Which makes sense- since exposing minors to pornography was a crime, and got even more illegal somewhere in that time frame, along with the web becoming "professional" (whitehouse top level domain mixup stories anyone?), the honest pornography sites all started self-regulating and asking if somebody is an adult before anything naughty gets shown.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - betaby 1y ago
    > Why it is problem right now? Push from the different generation? Late boomers got very puritan with age, also see themselves as more moral, again with age.
  - burnt-resistor 1y ago
    Nope, not here. Perhaps you live in some totalitarian shithole where you lack privacy or haven't figured out how VPNs work.
  - LorenPechtel 1y ago
    It's a "problem" because we are becoming a theocracy. There's no reasonable demonstration of harm and a very strong correlation between availability of pornography and a big reduction in sex crimes. The purported harms are due to blocking reasonable sex education, leaving teens with the equivalent of Hollywood being the only model of sex they see. The original study that was created to show the harms concluded they couldn't find any to anyone, even minors.
- jart 1y ago
  No one ever explains why it's so important that everyone always conceal their identity on the web, as though it were some global red light district. The most successful tech platforms all succeeded by getting people to be trusting enough to say who they are, like Twitter, Facebook, etc. It's worth billions of dollars to create any online space that isn't anonymous.
  - no_wizard 1y ago
    Reddit stands out against this wave. I reckon that Reddit is worth at least a billion
  - serf 1y ago
    OK. Here's an easy explanation. Someone you don't like somehow gets voted into power and begins trying to enact changes towards a social group you belong to. Building anonymous systems is one way to avoid Bad Actor X from having Big List Y, leading to Atrocity Z. Having a really successful social network isn't a goal post, it's just a result. Great -- it made a zillion dollars, meanwhile we've built the biggest leakiest information trove on individuals, for individuals to be exploited, ever imagined.
    - jart 1y ago
      Already happened with USG. You know who doesn't discriminate against my group? Big tech companies. If they can step up and take on more responsibility for identity verification in our society, then my social group will be less oppressed. The California Republic must lead the way.
      - 16bitvoid 1y ago
        They may not themselves, but they'll happily sell your info or give it up to avoid losing money to someone who would.
        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
- ranger_danger 1y ago
  The text of this bill would be satisfied by a website simply having a "Yes, I'm over 18" button on the front.
- kristopolous 1y ago
  My favorite is Montana where you have to provide more identification to view a naughty jpeg then buy a firearm.
- doctorpangloss 1y ago
  Google doesn’t need to identify you… you use Gmail. And anyway, they created a library (https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/opening-up-zero-knowledge-proof-technology-to-promote-privacy-in-age-assurance/ https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/opening-up-ze...) to make age verification not useful for identification but still real. So… I’m sure you meant fingerprinting but presumably porn sites already do that?
- fortran77 1y ago
  I think they love it to because it will be another barrier for a little small start up from entering the market. You'll need to spend so much on regulatory issues and compliance that only the biggest, established companies can have a business.
- tzs 1y ago
  The privacy implications for this bill for adults seem to be about the same as the privacy implications for the "Click if you are 18+" button on many websites. If you are under 18 there is no checking to stop you from saying you are are 18+ The only people it seems might have their privacy slightly reduced are people under 18 who are using a computer or smartphone/tablet that had parental controls set up by presumably a parent or guardian before giving the minor access. The bill requires that the parent be able to enter the minor's birthday or age in one place, and then provide a way that the age range (under 5, 5-10, 10-13, 13-16, 16-18, 18+) can be given to apps/sites if they ask for it. Thus, if you are a minor using a device that was set up with parental controls and you try to use an app or site that is restricted, that app or site will find out your age range.
  - recursivegirth 1y ago
    This is actually a level headed way to deal with it. Provide a way for the device to inform the website / app of their age status (it can be bucketed for increased privacy/compatibility with existing rating systems). Then legislate that it is on the website to inform the device of the type of content being served. Then the device/browser can be responsible for implementing the privacy controls (page blocking, notifications, overrides, etc.), and the parents are responsible for ensuring their children's devices are configured with their ages.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 1y ago
  Is there irony in the fact that Americans will pass privacy invading laws to protect kids from porn, but not gun laws to protect them from being shot at in school? How many kids die from porn exposure every year?
  - stogot 1y ago
    Gun laws stop school shootings? Where in the US does that work?
    - Eddy_Viscosity2 1y ago
      The US has never tried this. For an example of efficacy we have to look at other wealthy western nations that have strict gun laws and see how many school shootings they have. The data overwhelmingly indicates this works. As a counter-point, where in the US has any law stopped teenagers looking at naughty things on the internet?
      - pixxel 1y ago
        [dead]
      - stogot 1y ago
        What kind of state or federal law do you propose, with the unlikelihood that the 2A won’t be repealed?
        Eddy_Viscosity2 1y ago
        Easy, just do the same thing as other western countries. If the 2A is an obstacle, then change it. The unlikelihood of and changing the 2A is the heart of the problem, not an constraint to be worked around. The question is why are gun rights sacrosanct, but other rights can taken away just by saying 'think of the children'.
        heavyset_go 1y ago
- tmaly 1y ago
  This is just going to create a regulatory moat where only the incumbents can survive.
vpShane 1y ago
Not sure if this is related, but Google open sourced their zero knowledge proof libraries (https://github.com/google/longfellow-zk https://github.com/google/longfellow-zk) Think: verify age without giving any other information. I've seen compelling stories against it, but the zero knowledge proof aspect is a fun thing to look in to. https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/opening-up-zero-knowledge-proof-technology-to-promote-privacy-in-age-assurance/ https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/opening-up-ze...
mouse_ 1y ago
Regulatory monopolists.
avarun 1y ago
This bill is a strictly better version of the age gating initiatives that have been passed in other states and countries like the UK and Australia. If age gating is inevitable, and it seems as though it is, this is the least bad way to do it — enforcing the onus on device manufacturers, who can do verification one time and then throw away the information.
- userbinator 1y ago
  and it seems as though it is Only with that attitude will it be.
- _heimdall 1y ago
  > If age gating is inevitable What could possibly make it inevitable? We are either okay with those with authority forcing us to ID ourselves in some form or we aren't.
- g-b-r 1y ago
  It would easily mean that you're required to have an unmodified device, running a locked down system, to be able to access any service that uses age verification. Although, a much more sensible alternative, would be to have parents (that do want the control) give their sons devices that send the "minor alert" signal, and have the services detect that.
  - g-b-r 1y ago
    Of course all these measures risk making identifying minors trivial for any website and app, which is... not really ideal
    - g-b-r 1y ago
      And this specific proposal seems to let anyone know if your kid is: (A) Under five years of age. (B) At least 5 years of age and under 10 years of age. (C) At least 10 years of age and under 13 years of age. (D) At least 13 years of age and under 16 years of age. It seems a menu, I wonder what could go wrong....
ranger_danger 1y ago
The bill doesn’t actually require any real age verification... it just asks people to provide a (any) birthdate for the purposes of categorizing their access by age bracket. It doesn’t say anything about the information having to be accurate, and gives no penalties if you lie. I'm still against age verification in general, but I don't think this particular bill warrants the massive outrage similarly being made lately about more serious age verification laws, as it does not require any facilities for actually verifying, well, anything. https://trackbill.com/bill/california-assembly-bill-1043-age-verification-signals-software-applications-and-online-services/2670347/ https://trackbill.com/bill/california-assembly-bill-1043-age...
- sigmar 1y ago
  >to provide a developer, as defined, who has requested a signal with respect to a particular user with a digital signal via a reasonably consistent real-time application programming interface regarding whether a user is in any of several age brackets, as prescribed. Summary reads to me as this bill requiring calls to an API to verify the user's age.
  - ranger_danger 1y ago
    > requiring calls to an API to verify the user's age By simply asking for their age. There's nothing about requiring that the age is actually attempted to be verified as accurate at all. And the "age bracket" is specifically defined as nonpersonally identifiable information. And it still gives no consequences for wrong/fake information. Interestingly, they also define a "developer" simply as "a person that owns, maintains, or controls an application". Wouldn't that inherently include all users of a computer in general?
    - nl 1y ago
      > There's nothing about requiring that the age is actually attempted to be verified as accurate at all. To quote: requires a business that provides an online service, product, or feature likely to be accessed by children to do certain things, including estimate the age of child users with a reasonable level of certainty appropriate to the risks "Reasonable level of certainty" requires some kind of attempt at verification. In Australia for example they allow facial estimation software (which I agree is not good, but it provides some kind of estimate the government is happy with) > And it still gives no consequences for wrong/fake information. Where are you seeing that? To quote the bill: > This bill would punish noncompliance with a civil penalty to be enforced by the Attorney General, as prescribed. And: line 17 A person that violates this title shall be subject line 18 to an injunction and liable for a civil penalty of not more than two line 19 thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500) per affected child for each line 20 negligent violation or not more than seven thousand five hundred line 21 dollars ($7,500) per affected child for each intentional violation, line 22 which shall be assessed and recovered only in a civil action brought line 23 in the name of the people of the State of California by the Attorney line 24 General.
polyomino 1y ago
The MPAA's argument against this bill is a complete joke: >MPA urged state lawmakers to reject Wicks’ bill this week in a letter, obtained by POLITICO, claiming device-based age checks may sow confusion; for example, if parents and kids had separate Netflix profiles under one account that’s logged in on multiple devices. To the point where I'm asking if someone needs some token opposition to frame this obvious bill a political win?
- _heimdall 1y ago
  There are legitimate arguments that can be made against this bill...that is not one of them.
syntaxing 1y ago
This bill seems reasonable according to the article? It allows the device to state the user is underage and the site must act accordingly rather than gating users to a site and must prove their age. But then again “the road to hell is paved with good intentions" so no clue how it’ll play out in reality.
- akersten 1y ago
  How does the government mandating the way an operating system works seem reasonable?
  - theossuary 1y ago
    It seems very reasonable to require a feature in an OS, like requiring seatbelts in a car. Of course, it depends on the feature though.
    - nicce 1y ago
      I could also mean that if you don’t have TPM on your computer and the OS is not in the ”allowed” list, you can’t access anything. I hope that this is not the path we will see.
      - theossuary 1y ago
        Agreed. But talking in generalities like "the government should be allowed to mandate a feature" leads to silly arguments like "government can't mandate airbags." We should be having the discussion about what the goal is, what the mandate would be, and what the side effects could be. Otherwise the conversation is too high level to mean anything.
- yepitwas 1y ago
  This is almost an amazing thing. Some common top-level way to set parental controls across systems would be a godsend. That’s all a giant pile of time-wasting shit right now. However, any system that just uses age is useless. They’re always excessively cautious, so you may as well just not provide access at all for kids between the ages of 6 and 12 or so, if that’s all you have. No, block all + allow lists are still where it’s at. Please make those work better. (If anyone knows the magic to make Minecraft [java] work with macOS allowlist-only network access, I’d love to know what it is. The fucking launcher wants to talk to a half-dozen bare IP addresses to work, and the addresses change seemingly every single launch, from a pool of what must be many hundreds, at least, it’s completely unusable)
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
GeneralMayhem 1y ago
Bill text: https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB1043/id/3193837 https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB1043/id/3193837 This seems... not terrible? The typical counter-argument to any "think of the children!" hand-wringing is that parents should instead install parental controls or generally monitor what their own kids are up to. Having a standardized way to actually do that, without getting into the weirdness of third-party content controls (which are themselves a privacy/security nightmare), is not an awful idea. It's also limited to installed applications, so doesn't break the web. This is basically just going to require all smartphones to have a "don't let this device download rated-M apps" mode. There's no actual data being provided - and the bill explicitly says so; it just wants a box to enter a birth date or age, not link it to an actual ID. I'm not clear on how you stop the kid from just flipping the switch back to the other mode; maybe the big manufacturers would have a lock such that changing the user's birthdate when they're a minor requires approval from a parent's linked account? That said, on things like this I'm never certain whether to consider it a win that a reasonable step was taken instead of an extreme step, or to be worried that it's the first toe in the door that will lead to insanity.
- ndriscoll 1y ago
  The language suggests to me that GitHub would be a covered app store and a FOSS Linux distribution without an age gate API would be illegal in California (along with all programs that don't check the age API, e.g. `grep`), so it seems quite a bit worse in terms of killing free speech and culture than requiring adult sites to check id to me. Notably, a "covered app store" doesn't seem to need to be... a store. Any website or application that allows users to download software is covered. There's no exemption for non-commercial activity. So every FOSS repo and programs like apt are covered? The requirement is also that developers will request the signal. No scoping to developers that have a reason to care? So vim is covered? Sort? Uniq? Honestly I can't believe big tech would go along with it. Most of their infrastructure seems like it would clearly be illegal under this bill. Either there's something extremely obvious I'm missing or every lawyer looking at this bill is completely asleep at the wheel.
  - derbOac 1y ago
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
_alternator_ 1y ago
Where are the people designing ZK protocols for this? We could have age verification and privacy…
- clgeoio 1y ago
  Relevant Cory Doctorow https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/14/bellovin/#wont-someone-think-of-the-cryptographers https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/14/bellovin/#wont-someone-th...
- ranger_danger 1y ago
  Where is the proof that actually works well and maintains privacy for the forseeable future?
burnt-resistor 1y ago
Technofeudal Big Mother is here to deanonymize you and steal your personal identifiers to sell to data brokers because "Think Of The Children™!" Fuck age verification with 240 VAC.
samrus 1y ago
So the proposal is that parents just input the age on their kid's device, and apps pull the age range to limit content. Thats actually reasonable. Does not personally identify anyone, can be opted out of as easily as those "i am over 18" buttons. The only freedom being lost is by minors to their parents, which is already how things work. I like this

79 points by heavyset_go 1y ago

The bill is a bad idea. Of course big tech likes it, more id equals higher value data they can scrape. When (if?) it arrives it'll be two seconds before some places on the web will need more to be sure the person who set up the entire phone or app is actually not under age, thus the person setting it up will have to provide id ... the bill is a anonyphobes wet dream come true.

klysm 1y ago
It’s also regulatory capture. Harder for competitors to meet regulatory barriers

LorenPechtel 1y ago

Age gate means identification of the individual. Of course big tech loves that. You can have age gating or you can have privacy. Same as you can have porn filtering or you can have privacy.

zelse 1y ago
In practice, 100%. In theory we could likely design "good enough" anonymous systems that work like buying alcohol or tobacco in most countries (buy a scratch token in cash at a corner store after showing ID, picked at random from a box of them - contains a number, possession of which is theoretical proof that you had your ID verified at purchase)...but of course, the real purpose of age-gating is exerting a chilling effect, so we'll never hear about privacy-preserving methods. (NB: I am firmly opposed to any of this. The solution for parents concerned about their kids is parenting and parental controls, not giving authoritarians of all stripes the means to snoop and ban whatever they decide is obscene or troubling.)
- dh2022 1y ago
  This approach could create a black market where,say, high school seniors would buy these tokens and resell to high school sophomores/juniors.
readams 1y ago
Big tech has generally not loved this because they know that adding friction like id checks massively reduces attach rates. This is watered down enough that it's likely seen as a lesser evil.
- BoredPositron 1y ago
  A new account on Facebook, Instagram or Google/YouTube will usually instantly get restricted and triggers either ID or Phone verification anyways.
nicce 1y ago
Porn sites have been there almost 20 years. Why it is problem right now? Is there extensive recent research about it? Or now we just have the capability?
- nick__m 1y ago
  I remember pop-up porn adds started to appears around 1995 or so and 1995 is 30 years away...
  - privatelypublic 1y ago
    I ember them showing up and then being limited to super shady sites PDQ. Which makes sense- since exposing minors to pornography was a crime, and got even more illegal somewhere in that time frame, along with the web becoming "professional" (whitehouse top level domain mixup stories anyone?), the honest pornography sites all started self-regulating and asking if somebody is an adult before anything naughty gets shown.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- betaby 1y ago
  > Why it is problem right now? Push from the different generation? Late boomers got very puritan with age, also see themselves as more moral, again with age.
- burnt-resistor 1y ago
  Nope, not here. Perhaps you live in some totalitarian shithole where you lack privacy or haven't figured out how VPNs work.
- LorenPechtel 1y ago
  It's a "problem" because we are becoming a theocracy. There's no reasonable demonstration of harm and a very strong correlation between availability of pornography and a big reduction in sex crimes. The purported harms are due to blocking reasonable sex education, leaving teens with the equivalent of Hollywood being the only model of sex they see. The original study that was created to show the harms concluded they couldn't find any to anyone, even minors.
jart 1y ago
No one ever explains why it's so important that everyone always conceal their identity on the web, as though it were some global red light district. The most successful tech platforms all succeeded by getting people to be trusting enough to say who they are, like Twitter, Facebook, etc. It's worth billions of dollars to create any online space that isn't anonymous.
- no_wizard 1y ago
  Reddit stands out against this wave. I reckon that Reddit is worth at least a billion
- serf 1y ago
  OK. Here's an easy explanation. Someone you don't like somehow gets voted into power and begins trying to enact changes towards a social group you belong to. Building anonymous systems is one way to avoid Bad Actor X from having Big List Y, leading to Atrocity Z. Having a really successful social network isn't a goal post, it's just a result. Great -- it made a zillion dollars, meanwhile we've built the biggest leakiest information trove on individuals, for individuals to be exploited, ever imagined.
  - jart 1y ago
    Already happened with USG. You know who doesn't discriminate against my group? Big tech companies. If they can step up and take on more responsibility for identity verification in our society, then my social group will be less oppressed. The California Republic must lead the way.
    - 16bitvoid 1y ago
      They may not themselves, but they'll happily sell your info or give it up to avoid losing money to someone who would.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
ranger_danger 1y ago
The text of this bill would be satisfied by a website simply having a "Yes, I'm over 18" button on the front.
kristopolous 1y ago
My favorite is Montana where you have to provide more identification to view a naughty jpeg then buy a firearm.
doctorpangloss 1y ago
Google doesn’t need to identify you… you use Gmail. And anyway, they created a library (https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/opening-up-zero-knowledge-proof-technology-to-promote-privacy-in-age-assurance/ https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/opening-up-ze...) to make age verification not useful for identification but still real. So… I’m sure you meant fingerprinting but presumably porn sites already do that?
fortran77 1y ago
I think they love it to because it will be another barrier for a little small start up from entering the market. You'll need to spend so much on regulatory issues and compliance that only the biggest, established companies can have a business.
tzs 1y ago
The privacy implications for this bill for adults seem to be about the same as the privacy implications for the "Click if you are 18+" button on many websites. If you are under 18 there is no checking to stop you from saying you are are 18+ The only people it seems might have their privacy slightly reduced are people under 18 who are using a computer or smartphone/tablet that had parental controls set up by presumably a parent or guardian before giving the minor access. The bill requires that the parent be able to enter the minor's birthday or age in one place, and then provide a way that the age range (under 5, 5-10, 10-13, 13-16, 16-18, 18+) can be given to apps/sites if they ask for it. Thus, if you are a minor using a device that was set up with parental controls and you try to use an app or site that is restricted, that app or site will find out your age range.
- recursivegirth 1y ago
  This is actually a level headed way to deal with it. Provide a way for the device to inform the website / app of their age status (it can be bucketed for increased privacy/compatibility with existing rating systems). Then legislate that it is on the website to inform the device of the type of content being served. Then the device/browser can be responsible for implementing the privacy controls (page blocking, notifications, overrides, etc.), and the parents are responsible for ensuring their children's devices are configured with their ages.
Eddy_Viscosity2 1y ago
Is there irony in the fact that Americans will pass privacy invading laws to protect kids from porn, but not gun laws to protect them from being shot at in school? How many kids die from porn exposure every year?
- stogot 1y ago
  Gun laws stop school shootings? Where in the US does that work?
  - Eddy_Viscosity2 1y ago
    The US has never tried this. For an example of efficacy we have to look at other wealthy western nations that have strict gun laws and see how many school shootings they have. The data overwhelmingly indicates this works. As a counter-point, where in the US has any law stopped teenagers looking at naughty things on the internet?
    - pixxel 1y ago
      [dead]
    - stogot 1y ago
      What kind of state or federal law do you propose, with the unlikelihood that the 2A won’t be repealed?
      - Eddy_Viscosity2 1y ago
        Easy, just do the same thing as other western countries. If the 2A is an obstacle, then change it. The unlikelihood of and changing the 2A is the heart of the problem, not an constraint to be worked around. The question is why are gun rights sacrosanct, but other rights can taken away just by saying 'think of the children'.
        heavyset_go 1y ago
tmaly 1y ago
This is just going to create a regulatory moat where only the incumbents can survive.

vpShane 1y ago

Not sure if this is related, but Google open sourced their zero knowledge proof libraries (https://github.com/google/longfellow-zk https://github.com/google/longfellow-zk) Think: verify age without giving any other information. I've seen compelling stories against it, but the zero knowledge proof aspect is a fun thing to look in to. https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/opening-up-zero-knowledge-proof-technology-to-promote-privacy-in-age-assurance/ https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/opening-up-ze...

mouse_ 1y ago

Regulatory monopolists.

avarun 1y ago

This bill is a strictly better version of the age gating initiatives that have been passed in other states and countries like the UK and Australia. If age gating is inevitable, and it seems as though it is, this is the least bad way to do it — enforcing the onus on device manufacturers, who can do verification one time and then throw away the information.

userbinator 1y ago
and it seems as though it is Only with that attitude will it be.
_heimdall 1y ago
> If age gating is inevitable What could possibly make it inevitable? We are either okay with those with authority forcing us to ID ourselves in some form or we aren't.
g-b-r 1y ago
It would easily mean that you're required to have an unmodified device, running a locked down system, to be able to access any service that uses age verification. Although, a much more sensible alternative, would be to have parents (that do want the control) give their sons devices that send the "minor alert" signal, and have the services detect that.
- g-b-r 1y ago
  Of course all these measures risk making identifying minors trivial for any website and app, which is... not really ideal
  - g-b-r 1y ago
    And this specific proposal seems to let anyone know if your kid is: (A) Under five years of age. (B) At least 5 years of age and under 10 years of age. (C) At least 10 years of age and under 13 years of age. (D) At least 13 years of age and under 16 years of age. It seems a menu, I wonder what could go wrong....

ranger_danger 1y ago

The bill doesn’t actually require any real age verification... it just asks people to provide a (any) birthdate for the purposes of categorizing their access by age bracket. It doesn’t say anything about the information having to be accurate, and gives no penalties if you lie. I'm still against age verification in general, but I don't think this particular bill warrants the massive outrage similarly being made lately about more serious age verification laws, as it does not require any facilities for actually verifying, well, anything. https://trackbill.com/bill/california-assembly-bill-1043-age-verification-signals-software-applications-and-online-services/2670347/ https://trackbill.com/bill/california-assembly-bill-1043-age...

sigmar 1y ago
>to provide a developer, as defined, who has requested a signal with respect to a particular user with a digital signal via a reasonably consistent real-time application programming interface regarding whether a user is in any of several age brackets, as prescribed. Summary reads to me as this bill requiring calls to an API to verify the user's age.
- ranger_danger 1y ago
  > requiring calls to an API to verify the user's age By simply asking for their age. There's nothing about requiring that the age is actually attempted to be verified as accurate at all. And the "age bracket" is specifically defined as nonpersonally identifiable information. And it still gives no consequences for wrong/fake information. Interestingly, they also define a "developer" simply as "a person that owns, maintains, or controls an application". Wouldn't that inherently include all users of a computer in general?
  - nl 1y ago
    > There's nothing about requiring that the age is actually attempted to be verified as accurate at all. To quote: requires a business that provides an online service, product, or feature likely to be accessed by children to do certain things, including estimate the age of child users with a reasonable level of certainty appropriate to the risks "Reasonable level of certainty" requires some kind of attempt at verification. In Australia for example they allow facial estimation software (which I agree is not good, but it provides some kind of estimate the government is happy with) > And it still gives no consequences for wrong/fake information. Where are you seeing that? To quote the bill: > This bill would punish noncompliance with a civil penalty to be enforced by the Attorney General, as prescribed. And: line 17 A person that violates this title shall be subject line 18 to an injunction and liable for a civil penalty of not more than two line 19 thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500) per affected child for each line 20 negligent violation or not more than seven thousand five hundred line 21 dollars ($7,500) per affected child for each intentional violation, line 22 which shall be assessed and recovered only in a civil action brought line 23 in the name of the people of the State of California by the Attorney line 24 General.

polyomino 1y ago

The MPAA's argument against this bill is a complete joke: >MPA urged state lawmakers to reject Wicks’ bill this week in a letter, obtained by POLITICO, claiming device-based age checks may sow confusion; for example, if parents and kids had separate Netflix profiles under one account that’s logged in on multiple devices. To the point where I'm asking if someone needs some token opposition to frame this obvious bill a political win?

_heimdall 1y ago
There are legitimate arguments that can be made against this bill...that is not one of them.

syntaxing 1y ago

This bill seems reasonable according to the article? It allows the device to state the user is underage and the site must act accordingly rather than gating users to a site and must prove their age. But then again “the road to hell is paved with good intentions" so no clue how it’ll play out in reality.

akersten 1y ago
How does the government mandating the way an operating system works seem reasonable?
- theossuary 1y ago
  It seems very reasonable to require a feature in an OS, like requiring seatbelts in a car. Of course, it depends on the feature though.
  - nicce 1y ago
    I could also mean that if you don’t have TPM on your computer and the OS is not in the ”allowed” list, you can’t access anything. I hope that this is not the path we will see.
    - theossuary 1y ago
      Agreed. But talking in generalities like "the government should be allowed to mandate a feature" leads to silly arguments like "government can't mandate airbags." We should be having the discussion about what the goal is, what the mandate would be, and what the side effects could be. Otherwise the conversation is too high level to mean anything.
yepitwas 1y ago
This is almost an amazing thing. Some common top-level way to set parental controls across systems would be a godsend. That’s all a giant pile of time-wasting shit right now. However, any system that just uses age is useless. They’re always excessively cautious, so you may as well just not provide access at all for kids between the ages of 6 and 12 or so, if that’s all you have. No, block all + allow lists are still where it’s at. Please make those work better. (If anyone knows the magic to make Minecraft [java] work with macOS allowlist-only network access, I’d love to know what it is. The fucking launcher wants to talk to a half-dozen bare IP addresses to work, and the addresses change seemingly every single launch, from a pool of what must be many hundreds, at least, it’s completely unusable)

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GeneralMayhem 1y ago

Bill text: https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB1043/id/3193837 https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB1043/id/3193837 This seems... not terrible? The typical counter-argument to any "think of the children!" hand-wringing is that parents should instead install parental controls or generally monitor what their own kids are up to. Having a standardized way to actually do that, without getting into the weirdness of third-party content controls (which are themselves a privacy/security nightmare), is not an awful idea. It's also limited to installed applications, so doesn't break the web. This is basically just going to require all smartphones to have a "don't let this device download rated-M apps" mode. There's no actual data being provided - and the bill explicitly says so; it just wants a box to enter a birth date or age, not link it to an actual ID. I'm not clear on how you stop the kid from just flipping the switch back to the other mode; maybe the big manufacturers would have a lock such that changing the user's birthdate when they're a minor requires approval from a parent's linked account? That said, on things like this I'm never certain whether to consider it a win that a reasonable step was taken instead of an extreme step, or to be worried that it's the first toe in the door that will lead to insanity.

ndriscoll 1y ago
The language suggests to me that GitHub would be a covered app store and a FOSS Linux distribution without an age gate API would be illegal in California (along with all programs that don't check the age API, e.g. `grep`), so it seems quite a bit worse in terms of killing free speech and culture than requiring adult sites to check id to me. Notably, a "covered app store" doesn't seem to need to be... a store. Any website or application that allows users to download software is covered. There's no exemption for non-commercial activity. So every FOSS repo and programs like apt are covered? The requirement is also that developers will request the signal. No scoping to developers that have a reason to care? So vim is covered? Sort? Uniq? Honestly I can't believe big tech would go along with it. Most of their infrastructure seems like it would clearly be illegal under this bill. Either there's something extremely obvious I'm missing or every lawyer looking at this bill is completely asleep at the wheel.
- derbOac 1y ago

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_alternator_ 1y ago

Where are the people designing ZK protocols for this? We could have age verification and privacy…

clgeoio 1y ago
Relevant Cory Doctorow https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/14/bellovin/#wont-someone-think-of-the-cryptographers https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/14/bellovin/#wont-someone-th...
ranger_danger 1y ago
Where is the proof that actually works well and maintains privacy for the forseeable future?

burnt-resistor 1y ago

Technofeudal Big Mother is here to deanonymize you and steal your personal identifiers to sell to data brokers because "Think Of The Children™!" Fuck age verification with 240 VAC.

samrus 1y ago

So the proposal is that parents just input the age on their kid's device, and apps pull the age range to limit content. Thats actually reasonable. Does not personally identify anyone, can be opted out of as easily as those "i am over 18" buttons. The only freedom being lost is by minors to their parents, which is already how things work. I like this