Utah has become the first US state to pass legislation requiring app stores to verify users' ages and seek parental consent before allowing minors to download apps.
As the AP reports, the App Store Accountability Act is now headed to Governor Spencer Cox’s desk. If signed into law, most of its provisions would take effect on May 7.
Since the law puts the onus of verifying users' age on app store operators such as Google and Apple, social media platforms, which have long been blamed for not doing enough to protect kids online, welcome the bill.
"Parents want a one-stop shop to verify their child’s age and grant permission for them to download apps in a privacy-preserving way. The app store is the best place for it," Meta, X, and Snapchat said in a joint statement. "We applaud Utah for putting parents in charge with its landmark legislation and urge Congress to follow suit."
As the AP notes, Apple argued in a recent online safety report that only a few apps require age verification, so parents shouldn’t be forced to share sensitive information about their kids with app store operators.
"The right place to address the dangers of age-restricted content online is the limited set of websites and apps that host that kind of content," Apple said. "After all, we ask merchants who sell alcohol in a mall to verify a buyer’s age by checking IDs—we don't ask everyone to turn their date of birth over to the mall if they just want to go to the food court."
According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple lobbied against a similar bill in Louisiana last year and got it killed. At least eight other states have proposed similar legislation, including South Carolina, South Dakota, Alaska, Kentucky, Alabama, New Mexico, West Virginia, and Hawaii.
Some states have implemented age-verification laws that apply to specific websites. They're largely targeted at adult sites, which prompted Pornhub parent company Aylo to block its sites in several states, including Utah. A challenge to Texas' age-verification law made its way to the Supreme Court in January, but the court has yet to issue a final ruling.