While Apple is currently lobbying against being given a legal responsibility for age verification when it comes to downloading apps, I think the company’s customers would very much benefit from it taking on this role.
Given the company’s track record in finding privacy-respecting approaches to personal data, I would like to see it go even further than the proposals we’ve seen to date …
The age verification story so far
Some US states and countries have mandatory minimum ages for certain types of apps. The most striking example of this is in Australia, where the country has now banned anyone under 16 from using social media apps, but we’ve also seen requirements for age verification in a growing number of US states.
The legal position at present is that individual developers, rather than Apple and Google, are responsible for verifying the ages of those downloading their apps. However, federal lawmakers are considering changing this with a new proposed law, the App Store Accountability Act.
Instead of users having to prove their age to a whole bunch of individual developers each time they download an app with a minimum age requirement, the idea is that we would do so once to either Apple or Google, and the company would then age-gate apps as appropriate.
I trust Apple more than developers
I recently outlined the two reasons I’ve long been in favour of this approach.
Forcing users to hand over government photo ID and video selfies to an endless array of developers is a privacy nightmare. I’d far rather trust Apple to verify identity and age once, and then simply block downloads of age-inappropriate apps. It would also be a way better user experience if each of us only had to verify our age one time, rather than every single time we downloaded a new age-gated app.
Imagine, for example, being offered the choice of proving your identity to Meta in order to access Instagram, or doing so to Apple, with Meta being told only that your age has been verified. I don’t think that’s a difficult decision.
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