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iOS 26.2 Adds APIs for Texas App Store Parental Consent Law
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They "check your age" .. they don't "add you to a database" which is never purged and ends up in gods knows whose hands, eventually.
From the comments on this article you'd think Apple is conspiring to make The Handmaid's Tale happen in real life. Parents should be in charge of what apps are on their children's phones, period. There's no reason for a young teen to have, for instance, a dating app or a sports gambling app on their phone. This will provide another resource for parents to see and moderate what their children have available to them. This should not be controversial.
Nothing is stopping them from being all over this issue already, other than parental laziness.
I see that routinely, where friends have taken exactly no time at all beyond "here's your device"...
Turning more and more things into "give me your ID" is just outsourcing issues, and also not solving the actual real problem you're, correctly, getting at.
I agree with you that we have a cultural problem of lazy and overly-permissive parents. But even the best parents can't handle everything on their own. When you send your fifteen year old out to go over a friend's house and give them $10 to buy some snacks at the store, you have to be able to trust that they won't be allowed to buy beer with it because of the societal safeguards that have been placed around that product. It should be the same with apps. Some are fine for kids, but some you’re going to have to verify your age for.
That's a bit dramatic, so you must view society at large as Orwellian given we have age restriction laws for a plethora of things?
This is far beyond "knowing your customer." This is having your ID checked when entering a grocery store, or a library, places that have no business checking ID but being required to do so by the government.
Moreover, the Texas law in particular is draconian. Developers required to notify Apple and parents of every major change in functionality? Parents being required to approve every software installation and update? Kids getting their app access revoked at any time cause their parents are in a mood?
This isn't about protecting kids. This is about putting blinders on them.
There is an extreme difference between showing your ID in person and using it for a digital verification check. Using it online means your ID is permanently out there now for the entire world.
Those are funny examples, considering both grocery stores and libraries check IDs all the time.
What you call draconian is just a natural reaction to the changing nature of purchases. The reason there's never been a law like this before is because the idea of something getting an update after you buy it is, comparatively, a very new phenomenon. If something on your kid's phone undergoes a major change in functionality you need to be made aware of it. Nobody had to think about that 20 years ago, but now we do. Laws have to keep up with the world around them.
Your concern is some online merchants might mishandle your ID and leak your info.
I've got bad news for you - physical merchants are also capable of such blunders.
Between the two, I think I trust Apple's App Store more than I trust the staff at a random restaurant or store.
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It's interesting how many people here are saying parents are draconian and kids need to use their friend's data or whatever. I think the flip side of this is... parents could just not provide their kids with devices at all. So some kids will end up with devices, perhaps with restrictions, when otherwise maybe they just wouldn't have anything at all. I have a two year old - when will she get her own device? I'm pretty sure most parents are with me in not knowing. At this age it's easy to say no. That will become harder as she gets older and everything turns more gray.
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Nominally, I agree with you. However neither of those establishments check your ID at the door, nor do they check your ID when you buy milk or read a copy of 1984. They check your ID under very specific circumstances - in the case of grocery stores, when buying alcohol or tobacco and in the case of libraries when checking out a book to take home with you.
The Texas law would require the equivalent of checking your ID at the door at Safeway.
The parents set up the account with an address. The owner of the child account cannot change these settings. A VPN will not help here.
Essentially, what will happen is that for full Internet access, you have to prove you're 18 years old. The age of 18 is considered an adult in most states, so...
This law is actually really reasonable and consistent with other age restrictions in society we place on minors. This law isn't draconian by any stretch of the word. Your comparisons are apples to oranges and entirely irrelevant. This is akin to a child trying to buy a beer or mature rated video game and getting ID checked, not getting ID checked when walking into a store.
Indubitably kids will figure a way around it though and I'm not sure how effective it will ultimately be but adding safeguards for minors in what is essentially the wild west online is a good thing.
It’s funny that parents believe they can stop adolescence boys from accessing porn. I grew up before there was an internet and my porn was from clippings of the underwear section of the Sears catalog & clippings from magazines. Porn is all in your head, no matter how puritanical you want to get, boys will be boys. When all those hormones hit it’s easy to get excited about things that interest you, even if it’s just a fantasy in your head. I remember my best friend at that age confiding in me some of his fantasies that were horrific, but they were the ideas that turned him on… he had no intention of following through on them, but when he was feeling randy those were the ideas that came to his mind. So I guess Texas wants to give parents the illusion of more control. No matter how locked down the internet becomes, boys will make their own porn. (Or find dad’s buried in a closet somewhere). BTW, good luck blocking Safari. 😇
iOS Developers can’t operate without Apple. Apple can’t operate without approval from authoritarian governments. Obviously!
COPPA Act, which is basically the same thing outside of the age has seemingly not ended the internet in 25 years.
What other vice in society is handled with the logic of "they're going to do it anyway so we might as well not bother with any restrictions"? Obviously young boys are always going to find porn. They're always going to find beer and cigarettes, too. That doesn't mean it should be easy.
calling urgent UNICEF session now!
just in: resolution Attention Span Zero passed unanimously.