10
California Introduces New Age Verification Requirements for Software Applications
(natlawreview.com)
this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2026
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I realize this is “old” since this news comes from October 2025, but I am just learning about this after reading about the Colorado bill. I thought I was lucky to be in California…fuck me.
You should go read the actual requirements because it's probably the sanest version of this that exists.
Your OS just has to have a way for you to say "I am this age" (bracketed into several groups) at account creation and software is supposed to respect that. Not a fucking face scan or ID or any of that other bullshit that some other idiotic "verification" attempts require.
I fully understand that and it doesn’t make me feel any better about this.
It’s still a violation of privacy at its core and serves no purpose except continuing a dangerous slope of getting people adjusted to this overreach and leading to worse laws.
At best, it’s government overreach greed to extort money from people for not properly following yet another arbitrary law.
One thing I'm still not clear on, who would be fined in a Linux distro didn't impliment this?
From what I’ve read, it’s the companies/people behind the OS, not the end user. But I said “people” because my concern isn’t for the Microsoft’s and Apples but the guy who makes my favorite Linux distro or me compiling my own without this nonsense.
It also makes me wonder what happens if I do things to circumvent this like using a VPN to trick a site into thinking I’m not in California so I can specifically get an ISO that doesn’t include this.