Meta, X and Snap are celebrating a new law in UTAH that will require Apple and Google to take responsibility for verifying the age of users in their app stores and receiving the consent of parents for minors.
Technology giants have been struggling to determine which party should be responsible for verifying age in application stores. Companies like Meta believe that app stores have to verify user ages because these units wait and distribute applications. App stores, however, argue that applications that make applications must be held accountable as those that offer the product to end users.
Jack is not the only state that considers some such legislation on age verification; It is the first to adopt a law of this kind. The Act of App Store’s accountability, as the new law is called, was adopted by the Utah legislature earlier this month, then headed to the Gov table. Spencer Cox for a signature to make it official.
Prior to the passage of the law, Apple announced a new set of children’s safety initiatives for its application store, which include an application age control system. Its implementation would allow app developers to use a new API of the age to access the information interval provided by the parent. This information does not provide the app developers with the exact age of the minor or birthday, but allows them to adjust their application experiences properly based on the age -age range.
The Apple system requires the app developers to do the age -range search work before using an app, rather than the age -verifying shop at the download time.
Not surprisingly, social media companies are excited, the new UTAH law would require app stores to verify user ages before applications can be downloaded on their equipment.
In a joint statement, Meta, X and Snap praised the Utah movement, saying:
We applaud Governor Cox and Utah State for the first in the country that empowers parents and users with greater control over adolescent apps, and urge other countries to consider this basic approach. Parents want a store with a stop to oversee and approve many applications that their teens want to download, and Utah has led the way to centralizing it inside the app’s app store. This approach saves users to constantly present personal information in countless individual applications and online services. We are committed to maintaining parents and adolescents and we look forward to seeing more states adopting this model.
In total, 16 US states, including California and Texas, have presented their versions of application store legislation focused on age verification and youth security.