Age verification comes for application stores.
The laws that require Google and Apple to verify the ages of people before they can download applications are gaining impulse in the United States and worldwide in what could be a radical change for how people access the content on their phones.
Although age controls have become increasingly common on the Internet, the focus of attention has generally been on individual websites and application manufacturers, not in application stores. That is changing as some politicians and technological companies argue that it would be more efficient and uniform for application stores verify the ages of people in the name of child safety.
Eric Goldman, a law professor at the University of Santa Clara, said there is a battle in the technology industry on who will be responsible for the children’s life during the hours that spend on phones and tablets.
“We have this food fight,” he said. “Everyone points to each other.”
Three states, Texas, Louisiana and Utah, have approved laws this year that force application markets to verify the ages of all when they create accounts. They joined Singapore, an Asian technology center that approved a similar law. The four laws are scheduled to enter into force next year, and similar proposals are being considered in other states and in Congress.
But some argue that laws have potential costs to reduce privacy and the burden of freedom of expression. Some people in the United Kingdom, which have a new mandate for age controls, are verifying their ages through selfies that are carried out through the facial age verification software.
And it is not clear how much new laws would limit to adult content, especially if web browsers do not affect. Online age controls are often followed by over -the -outs in solutions, such as virtual or VPN private networks, which mask user locations to avoid local regulations.
The lobbying of new laws comes in part from the technology industry. The goal and some other Applications manufacturers of Mark Zuckerberg are eager to change the safety load of online children to application stores instead of assuming more than responsibility themselves.
But the trend is receiving a rejection of Apple and Google, which execute the largest application markets, as well as the defenders of civil liberties that see age verification mandates as a death sentence for privacy and internet anonymity.
Goldman, who opposes age verification mandates in privacy and freedom of expression, said the laws are popular now for several reasons: the broader reaction against technological companies; The amount of hours that children spend online, especially from COVID-19; and the lack of unity in the technology industry.
“Censorship is today,” he said. “Regulators are complete to embrace censorship as something good, and are more than willing to exercise their will on other sources of power in our society.”
State legislators who are pressing the measures say that status quo does not work.
“Parents constantly fight to protect their children, especially of dangerous content in their phones, tablets and other devices,” Texas state senator, Angela Pxton, said a Republican who sponsored the new law there. The law says that an application store “will use a commercially reasonable verification method to verify the age of the individual.”
Google and Apple oppose the laws for various reasons, including that they are too swept and that they need to collect too many data on users.
“This level of data exchange is not necessary: a weather application does not need to know if a user is a child,” said Kareem Ghanem, Google public policy director, in a blog post on state laws.
He argued that application manufacturers are better positioned to think about age. “On the contrary, a social networks application needs to make significant decisions about the content and appropriate characteristics for age,” he said.
In more general terms, age verification has accumulated considerable impulse. Twelve states have approved laws that restrict children’s access to social networks or that require the consent of the parents, although the courts have blocked three of those laws, in accordance with the Association of AGE verification suppliers, a commercial group for technology companies that handle age controls. And 24 states have approved laws that require age verification to see online pornography, says the association.
For some application developers, a state mosaic by state seems like a regulatory nightmare to treat. But for application stores, it is evidence that there is already a clear standard in the United States for whom it is responsible for the doubtful content. Online checks are already so complicated that the sector has its own commercial group: the AGE Verification Suppliers Association lists more than 30 members on its website. In a blog post in May, when Texas was debating his law, the group argued that the age verification of the application store was not sufficiently in itself. He cited many reasons, including that application stores have little or no authority when it comes to the open website.
Both Apple and Google say they are willing to assume an additional responsibility for the safety of children. They say they admit a framework by which the most risky applications manufacturers would obtain a standard “age signal” of the application store industry on the general age range of a user, which the user or a father would provide. Apple says it plans to launch a version of the system, known as “age assurance”, in its operating systems soon.
Apple said in a statement that it wants to “train parents to share the age range of their children with unveiled confidential information.”
“It is important to highlight that this solution does not require that applications markets collect and maintain confidential personal identification information for each person who wishes to download an application, even if it is an application that simply provides weather updates or sports scores,” he said. Apple has had “children’s accounts” for years and recently updated how parents can administer them.
In a policy document this year, Apple compared with the owner of a shopping center and compared the most risky applications with liquor stores or bars.
“We ask merchants who sell alcohol in a shopping center to verify the age of a buyer reviewing the identifications; we do not ask everyone to deliver their date of birth to the shopping center if they just want to go to the food court,” he said.
In May, the Apple CEO, Tim Cook, entered the debate with a phone call to the Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, a Republican, asking for changes in the bill of the application store or a veto, according to the Wall Street Journal. Abbott, however, signed the bill.
Some legal experts argue that laws could violate the first amendment because they place a burden on the right of adults to see the protected discourse. But neither Apple nor Google nor its representatives have sued to block laws. The Supreme Court in 1997 eliminated a set of Internet rules that included age verification, but this year, the Supreme Court in a 6-3 vote confirmed a narrower age verification law of Texas that was directed to the pornographic content.
Meanwhile, Congress has had problems to create national legislation on the issue of online child security. The online security law for proposed children, which would create a legal “duty of care” for Internet platforms to limit damage to users, the Senate approved last year but not the camera. The legislation of Senator Mike Lee, R-UTAH, and representative John James, Republican of Mich., Would try to address problems such as violent or sexual material through application stores.
An attraction of putting application stores in charge of age verification, if technology companies will do so at all, it is the idea of creating a uniform system of age controls, said Peter Chandler, executive director of the Internet Works, a lobbying and trade group for more than 20 medium -sized technology companies such as Reddit and Roblox.
“Imagine an age verification compliance regime that requires that each website or website emerge or create its own age verification system,” he said.
“What you would end is this age verification system so in absence. How can we ask parents to understand and navigate that?” said. “Sometimes simpler is the best.”
