New York just proposed the most invasive state-level age verification bill the US has seen. Senate Bill S08102 would extend age verification requirements down to the device itself: internet-connected devices, operating system providers, and app stores would all be required to implement what the bill calls “age assurance” before users can access their own hardware and software ecosystems.
Edit:
Meta is one of the lobbyists for the age verification bill.
Into the Metaverse: The Money and Motivations Behind Meta’s App Store Gambit
In May 2025, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and Representative John James (R-MI) introduced the App Store Accountability Act (ASAA), a bill that would require app stores to verify users’ ages and obtain parental consent for users under 18. Meta has bankrolled a wildly expensive lobbying campaign to enact ASAA and its state-level analogs, and instead of recoiling in horror at taking kid privacy advice from Meta, some lawmakers are credulously going along with it.
Confirmed by Bloomberg : Meta Clashes With Apple, Google Over Age Check Legislation
The struggle has pitted Meta Platforms Inc. and other app developers against Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, the world’s largest app stores. Lobbyists for both sides are moving from state to state, working to water down or redirect the legislation to minimize their clients’ risks.
This year alone, at least three states — Utah, Texas and Louisiana — passed legislation requiring tech companies to authenticate users’ ages, secure parental consent for anyone under 18 and ensure minors are protected from potentially harmful digital experiences. Now, lobbyists for all three companies are flooding into South Carolina and Ohio, the next possible states to consider such legislation.
in addition, there are Over 50 Child Advocacy Groups Unite to Demand App Store Accountability
Ok, so again I’m not very smart on this subject. Could we not make a universal id system that locally authenticates and only sends a confirmation to say, Facebook or pornhub?
Edit: like we already have id and driver license. Can’t the local system read that and verify without sending the information? Just the confirmation. Why do we need to send the info to the company? I’m again just trying to understand the issues we are facing.
Do you really trust your government to know every single account associated with you? Do you trust the current leader and future leaders of your country to have every internet activity easily linked to you? Countries like the US will no longer have to subpoena for that information like they recently did for reddit users critical of ICE.
So does it really make you feel better to have the government in control of a universal ID system?
Well to build a universal ID system, we would have to give everyone a unique digital ID that is then associated with their device. So even if it’s claimed it would only be used to verify age where required, its trivial to then use that unique ID to track other device activity and tie it to your real identity.
There has already been examples of law enforcement using cellphone tower data, commercial ad IDs, social media posts, and anything else they can get to track and locate people without warrants or legal justification. So this would just be another way to tie digital activity to your real identity.
I see. Thank you. I guess I’m my head I’m trying to relate this to showing id for alcohol in a liquor store but there just is no comparison. This shit is going to suck.
Yeah, it would be like having a giant version of your ID projected over your head all the time. And someone following you around recording everywhere you go and everything you do.
Would be some next level stuff where governments would be able to track and shut down protest attempts before it even happened. And identify those who have expressed critical views of their government and disappear them. And disappear people who bring up people being disappeared.
Until eventually just the thought of speaking freely in such a manner is killed off completely on the Internet.