Apple Launches 'Age Assurance' Tech As US States Mull Social Media Laws (reuters.com) 17
Apple announced a new feature allowing parents to share a child's age with app developers without exposing sensitive information, as lawmakers debate age-verification laws for social media and apps. Reuters reports: States, such as Utah and South Carolina, are currently debating laws that would require app store operators such as Apple and Alphabet's Google to check the ages of users. That has set up a conflict in the tech industry over which party should be responsible for checking ages for users under 18 -- app stores, or each individual app. Meta, for instance, has long argued in favor of legislation requiring app stores to check ages when a child downloads an app.
Apple on Thursday said it does not want to be responsible for collecting sensitive data for those age verifications. "While only a fraction of apps on the App Store may require age verification, all users would have to hand over their sensitive personally identifying information to us -- regardless of whether they actually want to use one of these limited set of apps," Apple wrote in a whitepaper on its website.
Apple on Thursday said it does not want to be responsible for collecting sensitive data for those age verifications. "While only a fraction of apps on the App Store may require age verification, all users would have to hand over their sensitive personally identifying information to us -- regardless of whether they actually want to use one of these limited set of apps," Apple wrote in a whitepaper on its website.
This really is a no-brainer (Score:2)
Plenty of stuff out there is not appropriate for kids. Securing network via filtration is pointless on a mobile device, and kids are more than smart enough to get around various other mechanisms to access things they shouldn't be able to, including social media.
The principle has always been that something that could be secured in real life (18+ shops and events) should also be able to be secured in the cyber world, but there was never a practical way to validate it that didn't also risk exposing the token a
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How has banning smoking for underage kids worked out? Drinking? Sex? War on drugs? Yeah legislation always works/s
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Social media companies are a lot easier to regulate than drug dealers. They register with the government, and follow laws - provided the government makes them. Drug dealers don't. Your kid can get drugs from any of a million drug dealers who are interchangeable, and materialize in and out of the ether.
Regulating smoking seems to have gone incredibly well, nobody under 25 smokes anymore.
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Your kid can get drugs from any of a million drug dealers who are interchangeable, and materialize in and out of the ether.
A lot like the internet then.
Re: This really is a no-brainer (Score:2)
18-24s still smoke in the US. In fact, e-cigarette usage is greater in the 18-24 category than any other age range, and increasing.
https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/ph... [cdc.gov]
Seems to be headed there (Score:2)
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Why should Apple or Google be responsible?
Seems to me that the end point that is subject to an age requirement should be responsible.
If bob's dildo shop on 5th avenue in required to sell to customers only 18 and older, it should be bob's dildo shop's responsibility to ascertain their customer's age, not Apple or Google.
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The parent who buys their kid a phone is a really good source of the kid's age. It's not leak-proof, but most other approaches leak like sieves.
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If Bob can't fulfill its legal obligation to sell online only to permitted customers, then Bob shouldn't be selling online.
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Should you really be posting online if you can't prove that it's legal for you to be posting in your jurisdiction?
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I dunno. Maybe. Maybe not.
But it certainly isn't my responsibility to enforce the law.
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If Bob can't fulfill its legal obligation to sell online only to permitted customers, then Bob shouldn't be selling online.
But registrations suck.
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If bob's dildo shop on 5th avenue in required to sell to customers only 18 and older, it should be bob's dildo shop's responsibility to ascertain their customer's age, not Apple or Google.
As much as I'm not a fan of online age checks in general, having your device transmit a cryptographically signed token indicating that you've already been age checked by Apple, Google or Microsoft is a lot better than Bob's Online Dildo Shop potentially keeping a copy of your ID.
The other problem with your brick and mortar age checking analogy is that your friendly real-world local dildo supplier is doing business under the laws of the municipality in which it occupies. The internet is global (at least in
Does this mean App Store porn (Score:1)
I have to think that once Apple provides a way for people to specify the age of some users, it opens the door to Apple also allowing much more adult-oriented apps on the App Store as they can realistically claim parents have the means to prevent children from accessing the adult material.
Could be even nice to have checks in app, like a NSFW post (or whole subreddit) on Reddit could not be read if you were under-age.
Re: Does this mean App Store porn (Score:2)
Apple don't want responsibility? (Score:1)