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Age Verification Laws Are Multiplying Like a Virus, and Your Linux Computer Might be Next (itsfoss.com)

submitted 2 days ago by Powderhorn@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

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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.

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[–] Mesa@programming.dev 4 points 1 day ago

Yeah, I think you're arguing with clouds. This person isn't saying these aren't effects or even objectives of the age verification effort, but it's a little silly to say, "No, this isn't about surveillance, it's about stifling LGBTQ and atheist progression." It's just so tunnel-visioned.

You could've even said it's about centralizing education as a whole and that would've been better encompassing. I agree, that's a bad thing. But it's absolutely not the full picture.