Age verification isn't sage verification inside OSes

"It is vague, using terms that allude but do not define. It sets specific and punitive fines for non-compliance, without specifying what non-compliance looks like. It will have a chilling effect on innovation by creating a foggily fearsome landscape of liability. It does not fix that which it claims to be fixable, and it breaks that which ought not to be broken."

"It talks of "digital signals" between OS, application stores, and apps. This excludes, one surmises, all those analog signals that developers would be tempted to use. It talks of "age verification" without verification. It applies to users "on a computer, a mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device that can access a covered application store or download an application.""

"We can run Doom on smart toothbrushes. Everything is a general purpose computer if you stare at it hard enough, sayeth Turing. Not all operating systems have user accounts, saith FreeDOS. And what of smart TVs, which all ages can simultaneously use?"

California Assembly Bill 1043, the Digital Age Assurance Act, mandates age verification during account setup to protect minors online. However, the law suffers from significant flaws: it uses undefined terminology, establishes punitive fines without specifying what constitutes non-compliance, and creates a chilling effect on innovation through unclear liability standards. The legislation is incoherent, using vague terms like "digital signals" and "age verification" without proper definition. It applies broadly to any general-purpose computing device accessing app stores, creating practical impossibilities. The law fails to address devices like smart TVs used by multiple ages and excludes older operating systems, potentially rendering older devices unable to download software.

Read at Theregister