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Age verification isn't sage verification inside OSes
There are two ways to look at the California Assembly Bill 1043, known as The Digital Age Assurance Act or DAAA. One is to say it is a 2025 law requiring operating systems and app stores to implement age verification during account setup to protect minors online. The other is to note that the law is all the worst things a law can be.
It is vague, using terms that allude but do not define. It sets specific and punitive fines for non-compliance, without specifying what non-compliance looks like. It will have a chilling effect on innovation by creating a foggily fearsome landscape of liability. It does not fix that which it claims to be fixable, and it breaks that which ought not to be broken. In the words of the General Confession in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer: there is no health in it. Toddler working with computer and smartphone
It is incoherent and tautologous. It talks of "digital signals" between OS, application stores, and apps. This excludes, one surmises, all those analog signals that developers would be tempted to use. Yodeling, perhaps, or interpretive dance. It talks of "age verification" without verification. It applies to users "on a computer, a mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device that can access a covered application store or download an application." We can run Doom on smart toothbrushes. Everything is a general purpose computer if you stare at it hard enough, sayeth Turing. Not all operating systems have user accounts, saith FreeDOS, And what of smart TVs, which all ages can simultaneously use?
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What is 'Ageless Linux,' which deliberately violates the law requiring age verification during OS setup? - GIGAZINE
In California, USA, the Digital Age Assurance Act (AB 1043), which requires users to verify their age during OS account setup to protect minors online, is scheduled to go into effect in January 2027. However, an operating system called 'Ageless Linux' has emerged that deliberately violates this law by not verifying users' ages.