The talk this week among open-source projects from Linux distributions to app stores like Flathub is how to deal with California’s latest insanity: the Digital Age Assurance Act. California’s AB 1043 state law is mandating that operating systems — Linux included — collect age information during account setup and exposing that age to eligible apps beginning on 1 January 2027. That leaves much uncertainty for Linux distributions and other repositories/stores and more. Canonical issued a statement today to clarify that they basically don’t have a solution to announce yet.
With all the uncertainty over this new California state law, in recent days there has been discussions on the Ubuntu mailing list. But they have been unofficial discussions. Seemingly to help clarify that and put out an official statement, Canonical’s VP of Engineering Jon Seager shared that they are still working on it. In a pinned-post on Ubuntu Discourse, he basically said they are still sorting things out without any clear plan to announce at this time:
“Canonical is aware of the legislation and is reviewing it internally with legal counsel, but there are currently no concrete plans on how, or even whether, Ubuntu will change in response.
The recent mailing list post is an informal conversation among Ubuntu community members, not an announcement. While the discussion contains potentially useful ideas, none have been adopted or committed to by Canonical.
When we have a clear plan, we will publish it through our usual channels.”
Similar discussions have also begun in the likes of the Fedora camp without any concrete plans yet for complying with this controversial California law. Meanwhile some operating systems like MidnightBSD have decided they will exclude all users of the state of California from using their software beginning next January to avoid the headache of dealing with California’s Digital Age Assurance Act.
Lots of uncertainties and issues for the open-source world to deal with this year around the California Digital Age Assurance Act for user age verification.
