Utah Gov. Spencer Cox on Wednesday signed a bill requiring Apple and Google’s mobile app stores to verify users’ age and require people under the age of 18 to use certain apps.
The law is the first in the country, representing a significant change in the way users’ age is verified online, saying it is the responsibility of the mobile app store to check their age. It’s about doing age checks to Apple and Google, not individual apps like Instagram, Snapchat, and X.
The App Store Accountability Act (SB 142) can also drive waves in other states, including South Carolina and California, and could pass similar laws.
The law is designed to protect children who don’t understand the terms of the app’s services, said Republican state senator and bill sponsor Todd Weyler.
“For the past decade, we have rated Instagram as being friendly to 12-year-olds,” Weiler said at a state Senate committee hearing in January. “it’s not.”
Apple and Google will need to request an age verification check when someone creates a new account in their state. According to Weiler, it’s probably necessary to do so using a credit card. If someone under the age of 18 opens an App Store account, Apple or Google will need to link it to their parent’s account or request additional documentation. Parents must agree to in-app purchases.
Neither company immediately returned a request for comment Wednesday.
Meta, X and Snap praised Cox and Utah for passing the bill, saying they encouraged other states to consider a similar approach.
“Parents want a one-stop shop to oversee and approve many apps teens want to download, and Utah is leading the way in which it centralizes within the app store on their devices,” the company said in a joint statement. “This approach allows users to repeatedly send personal information to countless individual apps and online services.”
Utah’s law is expected to come into effect on May 7th, but is expected to be challenged in a legal battle for its effectiveness. The state passed a similar ageing law related to pornography in 2023, debating whether it was violated by the Supreme Court in January.
Utah’s adoption of law is also the latest shot in a long-term skirmish between Facebook-Parent Meta and Apple.
Meta, who supported the bill, argued that the app store is the best place to perform age verification on minors, not individual apps. Meta recently reported last month that it will shift its policy strategy to shift its antitrust laws to Apple, seeking its own strategic advantages.
Apple says it makes the most sense for the app itself to perform age verification and, for privacy reasons, does not want to collect the data needed to verify age.
“The right place to address the online dangers of age-restricted content is a limited set of websites and apps that host such content,” according to a paper posted last month by Apple.
The Utah bill poses privacy and safety risks, Google said in a blog post on March 12th.
“There are a variety of fast-moving legislative proposals being pushed to ensure that meta and other companies hold their own responsibility to keep their children safe in the app store,” writes Kareem Ghanem, Google Director of Public Policy. “These proposals pose new risks to the privacy of minors.
The promotion of age verification comes after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, X CEO Lina Jaccarino, SNAP CEO Evan Spiegel and other social media CEOs appeared in Congress in January 2024 for an online child safety-focused hearing.
So lawmakers criticized businesses and said social media apps couldn’t prevent the sexual exploitation of children online and needed to do more. Zuckerberg appeared to be rattling during the hearing after the senator told him “I have blood in your hands.” However, the Kids Online Safety Act, a law that came out of the meeting, failed to move forward in Congress later last year.
Meta has also been hit by numerous lawsuits filed by the state on Facebook and Instagram regarding the happiness of children.
– Jonathan Vanian of CNBC contributed to this report.
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