Utah passes controversial age-verification bill for app stores – News

Utah today became the first state to pass legislation mandating app stores verify users’ ages and require parental consent for young people to download apps.

As the U.S. struggles to tackle online safety for minors, the onus so far has mostly been on social media companies to tackle the problem at their end. Utah’s new bill, the App Store Accountability Act, is directed at the app stores, namely Apple Inc.’s App Store and Google LLC’s Google Play. The bill will now fall into the lap of Governor Spencer Fox and, if passed, will no doubt still face legal challenges as several other states mull similar bills.

It’s no surprise the bill has received support from social media giants, which might feel such a bill lightens the weight of their burden to make life online safer for kids. Today, Meta Platforms Inc., Snap Inc. and X Corp. all applauded the Utah bill in a rare joint statement.

“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 companies said. “The app store is the best place for it, and more than a quarter of states have introduced bills recognizing the central role app stores play. We applaud Utah for putting parents in charge with its landmark legislation and urge Congress to follow suit.”

Google and Apple have yet to make public statements, but it’s likely they would take the line of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, which in a blog post today called the bill and other similar state bills an effort to “trample the constitutional rights of both adults and kids.”

“While the bill purports to protect minors from inappropriate content, it ultimately imposes sweeping restrictions on the free speech rights of all Utahns,” said the post, adding that such a bill “represents a major shift in how the states seek to control online speech, creating a dangerous precedent for digital freedoms.”

The legal challenges the bill will surely face will be considerable. A similar bill in Utah that asked social media companies to verify users’ ages by asking to see certain documents was shot down last year on First Amendment grounds. In the background, Apple has been busy lobbying against any child safety bills that threaten to regulate the App Store. The company has introduced various safety measures for kids over the years, some very recently, which are almost certainly a direct consequence of these latest legislative efforts among various states.

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