New Utah law makes app stores responsible for age verification

Meta, X, and Snap are celebrating a brand new Utah regulation that can require Apple and Google to take duty for verifying customers’ ages on their app shops and procure parental consent for minors.

The tech giants have been battling to find out which social gathering must be chargeable for age verification on the app shops. Corporations like Meta imagine the app shops themselves ought to confirm customers’ ages as a result of these entities host and distribute the apps. The app shops, nonetheless, argue that firms making the apps ought to bear the duty as they’re those providing the product to finish customers.

Utah isn’t the only state considering some such laws round age verification; it’s the first to enact a regulation of this sort. The App Store Accountability Act, as the brand new regulation is named, was handed by Utah’s legislature earlier this month, then headed to Gov. Spencer Cox’s desk for a signature to make it official.

Forward of the regulation’s passing, Apple introduced a new set of child safety initiatives for its App Store, which embrace an age-checking system for apps. Its implementation would permit app builders to make use of a brand new Declared Age Vary API to entry age vary data offered by the dad or mum. This data doesn’t present the app developer with the minor’s actual age or birthdate, however permits them to customise their app experiences appropriately primarily based on the age vary offered.

Apple’s system requires the app builders to do the work of requesting the age vary earlier than an app is used, moderately than the App Retailer verifying the age on the time of obtain.

Not surprisingly, social media firms are thrilled the brand new Utah regulation would require app shops to confirm customers’ ages earlier than apps could be downloaded onto their gadgets.

In a joint assertion, Meta, X, and Snap praised Utah’s transfer, saying:

We applaud Governor Cox and the State of Utah for being the primary within the nation to empower dad and mom and customers with larger management over teen app downloads, and urge different states to contemplate this groundbreaking method. Dad and mom need a one-stop-shop to supervise and approve the numerous apps their teenagers need to obtain, and Utah has led the best way in centralizing it inside a tool’s app retailer. This method spares customers from repeatedly submitting private data to numerous particular person apps and on-line companies. We’re dedicated to safeguarding dad and mom and teenagers, and look ahead to seeing extra states undertake this mannequin.

In whole, 16 U.S. states, together with California and Texas, have launched their very own variations of app retailer laws targeted on age verification and youth security.