Age Verification Laws Are Multiplying Like a Virus, and Your Linux Computer Might be Next
Age Verification Laws Are Multiplying Like a Virus, and Your Linux Computer Might be Next
https://itsfoss.com/news/age-verification-pandemic/
Publish Date: 2026-03-05 22:38:00
Source Domain: itsfoss.com
As of today, about half of all U.S. states have some form of age verification law around. Nine of those were passed in 2025 alone, covering everything from adult content sites to social media platforms to app stores.
Right now, California’s Digital Age Assurance Act (AB 1043) is all the rage right now, which targets not only websites and apps but also operating systems. Come January 1, 2027, every OS provider must collect a user’s age at account setup and provide that data to app developers via a real-time API.
Colorado is also working on a near-identical bill, which we covered earlier.
The EFF’s year-end review put it more bluntly: 2025 was “the year states chose surveillance over safety.” The foundation’s concern, which I concur with, is, where does this stop? Self-reported birthday today, government ID tomorrow? There appears to be no limit to these laws’ overreach.
📋
What’s next—verify yourself to get access to potable water? ☠️
Governments across the world are pulling out the exact same argument (protect the children) to push through laws with consequences that go well beyond keeping a kid off a harmful website. All while attendees of a certain island roam about the world freely.
It’s Not Just the U.S.
The UK moved first back in 2023. The Online Safety Act’s child safety duties went into force in July 2025, where it required platforms to deploy age verification measures, blocking minors from accessing harmful material.
Australia followed in December 2025 with a ban on social media accounts for under-16s, requiring age checks for adults to use the platform. It is narrower in scope, targeting platforms rather than app stores or operating systems.
Brazil has gone further. The Digital Statute of the Child and Adolescent comes into effect on March 17, 2026, and it explicitly names operating systems and app stores by definition.
Article 12 requires both to implement auditable age verification, expose an age signal via API to…
