As of today, about half of all U.S. states have some form of age verification law around. Nine of those were passed in 2025 alone, covering everything from adult content sites to social media platforms to app stores.
Right now, California’s Digital Age Assurance Act (AB 1043) is all the rage right now, which targets not only websites and apps but also operating systems. Come January 1, 2027, every OS provider must collect a user’s age at account setup and provide that data to app developers via a real-time API.
Colorado is also working on a near-identical bill, which we covered earlier.
The EFF’s year-end review put it more bluntly: 2025 was “the year states chose surveillance over safety.” The foundation’s concern, which I concur with, is, where does this stop? Self-reported birthday today, government ID tomorrow? There appears to be no limit to these laws’ overreach.
The issue still remains that with a check like this, who is to say what content need be age-restricted now lies with the state. They could (and will) restrict content and information that I think my kid should have access to, and it will be a bit all-or-nothing.
Provided the above, I’d say the centralizing of information is the chief concern @SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone.
I don’t know what a satisfying and achievable solution looks like here with that considered.