The bill's child safety framing is doing a lot of work to normalize what is, in practice, a government-linked identity layer baked into every device you own before you open a single app.

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

  • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.worldEnglish
    121·
    9 hours ago

    I was just trying to answer that at the fundamental level there has to be someone trusted to verify your info

    Why?

    Why does there need to be age verification at all?

    We’ve had computera since the 1940s, and never needed this. We’ve had the internet since the 1990s and never needed this.

    Now that a pedophile is in the white house, and an entire network of pedophile politicians have been revealed, NOW they want to protect the children???

    And you honestly believe that?

    • just2look@lemmy.zipEnglish
      141·
      9 hours ago

      I don’t know if you’re intentionally misunderstanding what I am saying or what, but I’m not saying age verification is needed. I’m saying that for their age verification plan to function, there would need to be a verifying authority and identifying information would need to be passed from your device to them.

      My first comment should have made it very clear that all of this is baseless garbage designed to further state surveillance goals.