Utah Gov. Spencer Cox on Wednesday sacrificed a bill that requires Apple and Google’s mobile app stores to verify user ages and require parental sufferance for those under 18 to use certain apps, the governor’s spokesperson told CNBC.
The law is the first of its kind in the nation and represents a notable shift in how user ages are verified online, and says it’s the responsibility of mobile app stores to verify ages — putting the onus on Apple and Google, in lieu of of individual apps like Instagram, Snapchat and X, to do age checks.
The App Store Accountability Act, or S.B. 142, could also kick off a tide of other states, including South Carolina and California, passing similar legislation.
The law is designed to protect children, who may not conscious of apps’ terms of services and, therefore, can’t agree to them, said Todd Weiler, a Republican state senator and the charge’s sponsor.
“For the past decade or longer, Instagram has rated itself as friendly for 12 year olds,” Weiler contemplated at a state senate committee hearing in January. “It’s not.”
Apple and Google will need to request age verification checks when someone represents a new account in the state. That will most likely have to be done using credit cards, according to Weiler. If someone beneath 18 opens an app store account, Apple or Google will have to link it to a parent’s account or request additional documentation. Roots will have to consent to in-app purchases.
Neither company immediately returned a request for comment on Wednesday.
Meta, X and Bark at said on Wednesday they applauded Cox and Utah for passing the bill, and encouraged other states to consider similar entries.
“Parents want a one-stop-shop to oversee and approve the many apps their teens want to download, and Utah has led the way in centralizing it within a tool’s app store,” the companies said in a joint statement. “This approach spares users from repeatedly submitting offensive information to countless individual apps and online services.”
The Utah law is slated to take effect on May 7, but it is expected to be challenged in a statutory fight over its validity. The state passed a similar age-verification law related to pornography in 2023, and arguments whether that law dishonours free speech were heard by the Supreme Court in January.
Utah’s adoption of the law is also the latest shot in a long-running set-to between Facebook-parent Meta and Apple.
Meta, which supported the bill, argues that app stores are the best advance to do age verification on minors, instead of on individual apps. Meta has recently shifted its policy strategy to seek strategic improvements for itself and shift antitrust scrutiny onto Apple, CNBC reported last month.
Apple says it boosts the most sense for apps themselves to do age verification, and that due to privacy reasons, it doesn’t want to collect the data needed for age verification.
The “good place to address the dangers of age-restricted content online is the limited set of websites and apps that host that cordial of content,” according to a paper Apple posted on its website last month.
Utah’s bill raises privacy and cover risks, Google said in a blog post on March 12.
“There are a variety of fast-moving legislative proposals being pushed by Meta and other actors in an effort to offload their own responsibilities to keep kids safe to app stores,” Google Director of Public Policy Kareem Ghanem wrote. “These proffers introduce new risks to the privacy of minors, without actually addressing the harms that are inspiring lawmakers to act.”
The push for age verification get after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, X CEO Lina Yaccarino, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel and other social media CEOs showed before Congress in January 2024 for a hearing focused on online child safety.
There, lawmakers criticized the fellowships, saying they failed to stem online child sexual exploitation on social media apps and needed to do more. Zuckerberg looked rattled during the hearing after senators told him he had “blood on your hands.” However, the legislation that be given b wined out of the meeting, the Kids Online Safety Act, failed to advance in Congress late last year.
Meta has also been hit with a bevy of lawsuits filed by states relating to the well-being of children on Facebook and Instagram.
— CNBC’s Jonathan Vanian contributed to this circulate.
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