Texas Requires Age Verification for App Stores

Stephen Nellis, for Reuters:

Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Tuesday signed into law a bill requiring [Apple] and [Google] to verify the age of users of their app stores, putting the second-most-populous U.S. state at the center of a debate over whether and how to regulate smartphone use by children and teenagers.

The law, effective on January 1, requires parental consent to download apps or make in-app purchases for users aged below 18. Utah was the first U.S. state to pass a similar law earlier this year, and U.S. lawmakers have also introduced a federal bill.

It was reported last week that Tim Cook called Governor Abbott to try and prevent this from passing.

“The problem is that self-regulation in the digital marketplace has failed, where app stores have just prioritized the profit over safety and rights of children and families,” Casey Stefanski, executive director for the Digital Childhood Alliance, told Reuters.

Apple and Google opposed the Texas bill, saying it imposes blanket requirements to share age data with all apps, even when those apps are uncontroversial.

“If enacted, app marketplaces will be required to collect and keep sensitive personal identifying information for every Texan who wants to download an app, even if it’s an app that simply provides weather updates or sports scores,” Apple said in a statement.

This is yet another case where Apple, and Google, have been reluctant (unwilling?) to do the right thing on their own and therefore government regulation is required.

Screen Time is Apple’s official framework and toolkit for managing child usage and limits on iOS. It doesn’t work. The restrictions are easy to bypass, especially for a modern tech-savvy teen, and the controls it gives parents are wholly insufficient. My own kids shock me on a regular basis for their clever ways to get around the limitations we place on their phones with Screen Time.

If Apple were serious about protecting access to sensitive content or protecting personal identifying information, they would fix the core issues before they become such a problem that lawmakers need to step in and regulate.