Art 12 ↔ Art 19 — Child protection (age verification) requires invasive data collection that conflicts with privacy and technical freedom; the content frames the tension as unresolved and potentially irresolvable in FOSS contexts.

Art 23 ↔ Art 12 — Labor rights of volunteer developers are subordinated by regulatory burdens requiring unpaid compliance work; the content documents but does not resolve this conflict.

ocbyc 2026-03-04 04:10 UTC link

This is a mess.

bruce511 2026-03-04 04:31 UTC link

On the one hand the legislation seems unimplementable for many OS makers, not just FOSS ones.

(The issue of "primary owner of the device" being the most problematic.)

Equally the concept of "app store" is different for different OS's. iOS and Android are clear. Mac and Windows are mostly "download and run from website" (although both want to pivot to appstore, with varying degrees of success.)

Then we need to wonder if yum and apt are stores, given that they aren't actually owned by "linux".

In truth though it kinda doesn't matter. It's trivial to add an "age" field to account creation. It's trivial for users to enter any date they like. So on the one hand it's easy for OS makers to comply, it's easy for users to lie.

Presumably if the law could have mandated age checks then would have, so I'm not even sure thus is slippery slope. Most minors don't have photo ID. Most desktop hardware doesn't have a camera (at the time of account creation.)

This feels like performative law-making. Vague language. Unenforceable user participation.

drnick1 2026-03-04 04:34 UTC link

Stallman was, once again, right. We need free software and hardware more than ever because of idiotic laws like this. Because of the decentralized development model, there is no single company or developer that can be unfairly targeted and coerced into adding anti-features such as age verification or encryption backdoors. California can shove its requests where the sun don't shine.

dmitrygr 2026-03-04 04:34 UTC link

"It probably does not apply to you" and "Laws are usually applied as intended" and "You'll probably be ok" is what i keep hearing.

None of that addresses "if you get unlucky and some prosecutor decides to help his career by prosecuting you as an enabler-of-child-inappropriate-whatever-it-is". YOLOing away one's freedom on "probably" seems risky, and there is no reward to be had for doing it.

The only sane solution is to simply add "not for use in california" to all OSs, until California gets its collective head out of its collective rectum.

cbdevidal 2026-03-04 04:35 UTC link

They’ll just slap a “Not for use in California” label over the download page then move on with their lives

shevy-java 2026-03-04 04:36 UTC link

So how does it apply? Is that the mandatory age verification clause that forces everyone into becoming a data sniffer?

California is kind of strange - on the one hand giving rise to open source; on the other hand being a lobbyist's paradise.

xvector 2026-03-04 04:41 UTC link

Incredible that California lawmakers choose to deliberately ignore the entire tech industry (that brings California its revenue.)

amluto 2026-03-04 04:43 UTC link

What a crappy law.

> Section 1798.500(e)(1) states:

“Covered application store” means a publicly available internet website, software application, online service, or platform that distributes and facilitates the download of applications from third-party developers to users of a computer, a mobile device, or any other general purpose computing that can access a covered application store or can download an application.

So… DNS servers are “covered application stores”, right? As is PyPI or GitHub or any other such service. S3 and such, too — lots of facilitating going on.

And I’m wondering… lots of things are general purpose computers. Are servers covered? How about embedded systems? Lots of embedded systems are quite general purpose.

edit: Yikes, whoever wrote the text of the law seems to have failed to think at all.

> (b) (1) A developer shall 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.

The developer shall request? Not the application? So if I write an application and you download it and run it on an operating system, then I need to personally ask your OS how old you are? This makes no sense.

> (2) (A) A developer that receives a signal pursuant to this title shall be deemed to have actual knowledge of the age range of the user to whom that signal pertains across all platforms of the application and points of access of the application even if the developer willfully disregards the signal.

Did they forget to make this conditional on getting g the right answer? If I develop an application used by a 12-year-old and the OS says the user is 18+ (which surely will happen all the time even if no one lies because computers have multiple users), and the OS answers my query, then courts are directed to deem that I have actual knowledge that the user is under 13? Excuse me?

blackqueeriroh 2026-03-04 04:43 UTC link

This is an intentionally vague law, and seems like the governor is more than happy to call for amendments: https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/AB-1043-Si...

Tyrubias 2026-03-04 04:46 UTC link

The Digital Age Assurance Act is a disaster both in concept and in its statutory language. Its author(s) seem to be entirely unaware of how software is distributed outside of walled gardens like Apple’s ecosystem. If I’m understanding the law correctly, then even software like Homebrew would have to implement some kind of integration with macOS to detect a user’s age. On a naive level, I’m surprised such an obviously flawed bill was passed and signed in California, where there are so many tech companies and lobbyists. The realist in me, however, realizes that tech companies don’t care about the privacy and software supply chain impacts and might even want these impacts to happen as a way of consolidating their control over the market. As an American progressive, it disappoints me that the only thing progressives and conservatives seem to agree is stripping ordinary people of any semblance of anonymity or privacy in the name of “safety”.

sdrinf 2026-03-04 04:47 UTC link

Counterpoint to peeps on this thread:

* This approach is the _most consistent_ with retaining anonymity on the internet, while actually helping parents with their issues. If any age-relevant gatekeeping needs to be made on the internet at all, this is the one I find acceptable.

* this is because the act very specifically does NOT require age _verification_ ie using third-parties to verify whether the claimed age is correct. Rather, it is piggybacking on the baked-in assumption, that parents will set up the device for their kids, indicating on first install what the age/DoB is, then handing over the device -a setting which can, presumably, only be modified with parental consent

* yes, there are edge cases, esp in OSS, and yes, it would be nice to iron those out -but the risk = probability x impact calculus on this is very very low.

* If retaining anonymity on the internet is of value to you, don't let the perfect be the enemy of good enough.

hiprob 2026-03-04 05:09 UTC link

When will the AI bubble pop already? Things seem to just get worse

hyperion2010 2026-03-04 05:11 UTC link

Annoyingly? Ironically? The best technical implementation of this law would be to make it possible for the "device owner" to tell the OS to set a flag that the user was under age. Never send the age, never send anything else. Just have a global variable indicating that the user is under age that can be accessed by the browser.

Now what would happen after that?

First oses would have to implement the above in a way that could not be bypassed, pretty much impossible if the child has access to the device.

Then you would need to require that websites honor that token or any similar token no matter how it was implemented ... https MITM etc. good luck with that.

Finally once all the implementation and enforcement hurdles are complete every website out there would immediately know that the user browsing was a child and all the trackers and ad networks on the web would immediately start targeting those users because children are marks.

Now you need even more laws and regulations to protect the children from being targeted by advertising companies, and good luck with enforcing that.

givemeethekeys 2026-03-04 05:44 UTC link

Copyright, patents, censorship, age controls etc... have never worked on kids.

When it comes to technology, parents will always, always be years behind their kids. The kids will find a way to circumvent all these controls that the laws are trying to force technology providers into implementing.

These laws won't result in less violence, lower drug use, more opportunity, or closer, more tight knit communities.

DankRaft 2026-03-04 06:08 UTC link

I haven’t made up my mind on whether I like this law or not, but this is a bigger condemnation of the FOSS community than anything else. This law was introduced over a year ago, it was reviewed by multiple committees and nobody from the FOSS community ever went up to Sacramento to speak against it. A couple of emails to the right people back in March 2025 would’ve had a real shot of turning this bill into a non-issue. But nobody paid attention until it became a news cycle, and now it’s too little too late.

I hope this is a wakeup call for the linux community: if you don’t wanna get choked out by bad legislation, you have to get politically organized.

cvhc 2026-03-04 06:54 UTC link

Repost my comment in the other thread: I know this sounds absurd. But let me try not to be cynical and explain how we got here, according to what I understand:

First, let's admit the push for age verification laws isn't a partisan or ideological thing. It's a global trend. This California law has bipartisan sponsorship and only major org opponent is the evil G [1]. While age verification is unpopular in tech community, I imagine a lot of average adult voters agree that limiting children's access to wilder parts of the Internet is a good thing.

On this premise, the discussion is then who should be responsible for age verification. The traditional model is to require app developers / website owners to gatekeep -- like the Texas and Ohio laws that require PornHub to verify users' IDs. But such model put too much burden on small developers, and it's a privacy nightmare to have to share your PII with random apps.

This is why we see this new model. States started to believe it seems more viable to dump the responsibility on big tech / platforms. A newer Texas law is adopt this model (on top the traditional model) to require app stores to verify user age (but was recently blocked by court) [2]. And this California law pretty much also takes this model -- the OS (thinking as iOS / Android / Windows with app store) shall obtain the user age and provide "a signal regarding the users age bracket to applications available in a covered application store".

While many people here are concerning open-source OSes, and the language do cover all OSes -- my intuition is no lawmaker had ever think about them and they were not the target.

[1] https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab...

[2] https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/05/big-tech-won-in-tex...

ZiiS 2026-03-04 07:21 UTC link

A lot of words to say adding a column to passwd and changing all software that creates accounts will take some work. For me giving parents more tools seems easily worth the work, but I can understand others who disagree.

csense 2026-03-04 08:32 UTC link

A lot of people people contributing to FOSS are volunteers. The calculus of working on stuff for free involves an assumption that your worst-case outcome is you make $0. This act's punitive fines change the worst-case outcome to somewhere around -$9999999 or more.

If you work on any programming project at all in any capacity:

- Are you confident your work doesn't fall afoul of this?

- Are you confident they won't decide to come after you anyway for insane political, bureaucratic or "seeing-like-a-state" dysfunctions?

- Are you willing to bet millions of dollars in potential fines that your answers to the previous two questions are correct?

bitwize 2026-03-04 09:49 UTC link

All open source projects should withdraw immediately from the United States, IP-block all USA downloads, and headquarter themselves in sensible countries without such laws. Any state having these laws means they can drag you into their courts for violating them.

packetlost 2026-03-04 17:25 UTC link

I don't think most Linux package managers would fall under the scope of this law either as the vast majority require administrative privileges on the computer to run. The law could be made better by adding an administrator definition to distinguish between privileged and unprivileged accounts, but that might be asking too much of those who wrote the law.

shevy-java 2026-03-04 04:37 UTC link

> Then we need to wonder if yum and apt are stores

IMO this is quite simple - as they provide software, they are "stores" too. Although I think most would associate a store with e. g. MS store, Apple store and so forth.

The word "store" is weird though. Would it not be easier to use different words? Anyone providing software for download; and perhaps add a size threshold to stop pestering small business or solo users. This really seems to target Linux here.

shevy-java 2026-03-04 04:39 UTC link

It is indeed strange that California suddenly became a lobbyist's paradise. Louis Rossmann doesn't have an infinite number of time available and he is more an East Coast person, even after having left New York, but it would be really interesting to see which lobbyists drafted that law. It will probably be copy/pasted to more states soon.

staplers 2026-03-04 04:40 UTC link

As Disney took open source IP (fairy tales, etc) and pulled the ladder up behind them, so too are tech companies.

bee_rider 2026-03-04 04:45 UTC link

IIRC there wasn’t anything about the OS needing to validate the info, just ask for it at setup and provide it when requested. Part of me wonders if this was just an attempt to stake out a position as to what a law of this sort, that still respects privacy, might look like.

I dunno. I don’t love it. But if a dumb age-range flag became “the thing” to check, well, that’s be less invasive than uploading an ID or something.

IAmGraydon 2026-03-04 04:45 UTC link

Four of the biggest OSes (iOS, macOS, Android, and Chrome OS) are made in California by the companies who pushed this legislation through. Never going to happen.

dismalaf 2026-03-04 04:46 UTC link

No one could interpret yum or apt as stores on their own. The "store" would be the repository that the software is coming from.

dismalaf 2026-03-04 04:47 UTC link

Did they? Or is it regulatory capture? MS is really pushing their online MS account thing, Apple and Google already have online accounts associated with your OS profile. It feels a lot like regulatory capture...

lokar 2026-03-04 04:48 UTC link

FWIW, only the attorney general can bring cases, not district attorneys or individuals.

bluehex 2026-03-04 04:49 UTC link

"Designed by Apple in California, not for use in California" would be quite the statement.

bee_rider 2026-03-04 04:49 UTC link

I guess we will have to replace the OS of every system that can play a violent and inappropriate videogame, like Doom.

packetlost 2026-03-04 04:50 UTC link

DNS doesn't generally distribute applications, so no it doesn't apply.

ux266478 2026-03-04 04:55 UTC link

I'm almost certain we will live to see "they can't fine all of us" get torn to shreds in real time as government language models patrol the 'net for software projects that lack an age verification call.

Why, we could even see a legal requirement for code repositories to run one themselves, constantly scanning for compliance. That way the compute cost is offloaded properly on the citizenry :)

themafia 2026-03-04 05:01 UTC link

> while actually helping parents with their issues.

> that parents will set up the device for their kids

Are the devices parents are currently setting up lacking these controls? Is there no third party software which can achieve this?

Then why is it a crime with an associated fine for me to provide an OS which does not have one? How have I failed to "help parents with their issues?"

Tyrubias 2026-03-04 05:14 UTC link

I understand where you’re coming from, but I respectfully disagree with some of the points you made:

* It’s ambiguous how your proposed parental setup and control process would work for anything other than walled gardens like Apple’s ecosystem. On an OS like Debian, does that mean a child can’t have the root password in case they use to it change the age? Does that mean we need a second password that needs to be entered in addition to the root password to change the age? Will Arduinos and similar devices also need to be age gated?

* Those edge cases might seem small, but read broadly they would require substantial, invasive, and perhaps even impossible changes to how FOSS works. If the law isn’t changed and FOSS doesn’t adapt, this basically means the entire space will exist in a legal gray area where an overzealous prosecutor could easily kill everything.

* This is not a matter of “perfect vs good enough”, this is a major slippery slope to go down. Also, this doesn’t mean age _verification_ will simply go away.

burnt-resistor 2026-03-04 05:20 UTC link

Sacramento legislature is a "small town", insular, corrupt lobbying crucible that mostly does whatever it wants and whatever people with money and social media followings say.

ares623 2026-03-04 05:21 UTC link

This is what I was hoping for when I read one of the comments. It's okay if the child can technically bypass the flag. That's what the parent is for, to regularly monitor their child's device. But I am a parent with a technical background so this works for me, selfishly, I have no idea how it will work for everyone else.

But once again, I'd like to bring up my preferred solution for this problem. Ban "smartphone" (precise meaning TBD) for minors in public spaces. My belief is that it will disrupt the dopamine hits enough that it doesn't become addicting and kids don't rely on it completely to function socially. And just having it in legislature will serve as a starting point for parents to discuss the topic more openly, which will help with the network effects. Parents don't have second thoughts on why cigarettes or drugs or alcohol is bad for children, they just are, and whole groups of parents can collectively agree that their children and friends of their children should not be using them. I hope to see the same for "smartphones".

downrightmike 2026-03-04 05:23 UTC link

Amendment 1: Parents must parent first. State must not nanny.

Tyrubias 2026-03-04 05:27 UTC link

I think it’s a gross failing on the part of the state to intentionally _pass_ a bad/vague law and then ask for amendments. If you can’t write a good law, then don’t pass it. Corporations already do enough beta testing on people and the government certainly shouldn’t beta test laws.

techjamie 2026-03-04 05:36 UTC link

Yup, see how long it lasts when companies in California can't install anything on their servers because they get Rejected for Legal Reasons responses to their package requests.

Because the "store" never confirmed that Cloudflare is 18.

arcfour 2026-03-04 05:39 UTC link

It's the software developers, it's the government's, it's anyone's responsibility but mine to parent my kids!

coaksford 2026-03-04 05:56 UTC link

If they can get what they want from this, they will not stop after they get it. Even if the authors of the law want it to stop here, their successors will not, and will build upon this to erode privacy. When governments can change the deal effectively unilaterally, as is the case, you cannot make a deal with them that they cannot change, and you will have already surrendered the strongest argument against the next "deal" they want to unilaterally impose. Do not treat this as a deal to prevent further erosion, that is not what this is, treat this as an attack and attempt to advance against privacy and anonymity. Treating it as anything else is absolute gullibility.

kstrauser 2026-03-04 06:00 UTC link

My reading of 2A is that devs can take the word of the OS or App Store. If they say the user’s 18, and the user’s really 13, then the developer’s in the clear for serving adult content to them because they took the word of the certifying entity.

Conversely, if the OS says the user’s 13, then they can’t say they thought the user was actually 18. Guess sucks to suck if you want to buy a movie ticket from your kid’s phone, or if you mistyped your age when you set yours up because you didn’t have your passport nearby.

foofoo55 2026-03-04 06:05 UTC link

> [distributes] AND [facilitates the download of]

Grouping braces and capitalization mine. So distributing also required. However it's still overly broad, vague, and ambiguous.

kstrauser 2026-03-04 06:06 UTC link

I’ve gotta agree. Even if I supported the idea, which I don’t, I’d oppose it on implementation’s sake.

I’d rather be tasked to solve the Halting Problem than to be responsible for keeping kids away from porn. There’s no hacker more motivated than a teen who wants to see a boob. I know. I remember. “Son, why do you have a calling card for Peru?” “Uh, there’s this BBS in Lima…”

tzs 2026-03-04 06:37 UTC link

> Copyright, patents, censorship, age controls etc... have never worked on kids.

What the heck does it even mean to say patents have never worked on kids?

jdashg 2026-03-04 06:50 UTC link

2A just says that if the e.g. client request headers say the age bracket, the server (dev) can trust the reported age, but also shall not ignore it on purpose. No "just ignore the do-not-track flag" escape hatch here. "A bartender can't willfully refuse to check someone's ID if they are presented with it."

For incorrect OS answers, keep reading. 3B covers what happens if there's clear and convincing evidence that the age covered in 2A is inaccurate. (Reported profile birthday, for instance) This is "if someone shows a bartender a valid drinking-age ID but says they're celebrating their 17th birthday, this can't be ignored".

cvhc 2026-03-04 07:02 UTC link

And "not for use in Texas": https://legiscan.com/TX/text/SB2420/id/3237346

And "not for use in Louisiana": https://legis.la.gov/legis/Law.aspx?d=1428944

And maybe Brazil, Australia, Singapore and Utah as well (not checked): https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=f5zj08ey

cvhc 2026-03-04 07:12 UTC link

If you actually read this law, it does exactly the opposite to avoid every random app/website from having to do age verification (like traditional age verification laws requires). It requires that only the OS to ask the user's age (not even verify it). Individual apps should use the age buckets signaled by the OS.

I don't even get why people think lobbyists hijack the law. It might be too left/progressive/socialism/or whatever. But, basically, the only major org opponent of this law is Google: https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab...

p0w3n3d 2026-03-04 07:24 UTC link

TBH my kids have limited access to their (Android) phones using family link but I don't see option there to:

- block certain list of sites

- block walls inside YouTube for example

- limit amount of scrolling time Vs amount of learning time (this can be done quite easily)

So just give the tools to parents and stop requiring IDs for adults. What happens if kid gets adult's phone? And what happens when kid gets dad's rifle or car keys? It doesn't mean that all the rifles and car keys should now start to include blood sample based age verification mechanisms

--Edit--

Apple family management is even worse. The best I heard of is implemented in the switch console

csense 2026-03-04 08:36 UTC link

Just in case your answers to the parent post's three questions were "Yes, yes and yes" here are some additional questions:

- Have you ever uploaded a container to Dockerhub or Quay.io?

- Does that container have an OS inside it that has user accounts?

- Before you answered parent post's questions, did it occur to you that you might have to update your Docker images to comply?

- Did you remember on your own that you also have to delete or update older Docker images to comply, or did you not think of that until you read this question?

After you've answered these questions, please re-answer the parent post's questions.

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