Age verification signals: software applications and online services.

Existing law generally provides protections for minors on the internet, including the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act that, among other things, requires a business that provides an online service, product, or feature likely to be accessed by children to do certain things, including estimate the age of child users with a reasonable level of certainty appropriate to the risks that arise from the data management practices of the business or apply the privacy and data protections afforded to children to all consumers and prohibits an online service, product, or feature from, among other things, using dark patterns to lead or encourage children to provide personal information beyond what is reasonably expected to provide that online service, product, or feature or to forego privacy protections. This bill, beginning January 1, 2027, would require, among other things related to age verification with respect to software applications, an operating system provider, as defined, to provide an accessible interface at account setup that requires an account holder, as defined, to indicate the birth date, age, or both, of the user of that device for the purpose of providing a signal regarding the user's age bracket to applications available in a covered application store and to provide a developer, as defined, who has requested a signal with respect to a particular user with a digital signal via a reasonably consistent real-time application programming interface regarding whether a user is in any of several age brackets, as prescribed. The bill would require a developer to request a signal with respect to a particular user from an operating system provider or a covered application store when the application is downloaded and launched. This bill would prohibit an operating system provider or a covered application store from using data collected from a third party in an anticompetitive manner, as specified. This bill would punish noncompliance with a civil penalty to be enforced by the Attorney General, as prescribed. This bill would declare its provisions to be severable.