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Utah may be leading the way on a key tech industry change, which is a sentence that I did not expect to be writing in the year 2025.
As reported by CNBC, Utah Governor Spencer Cox has signed a new bill that will hold both Apple and Google responsible for verifying user ages in their app stores, with parental permission required for those under 18 to download certain apps.
As per CNBC:
“The law is the first of its kind in the nation and represents a significant shift in how user ages are verified online, and says it’s the responsibility of mobile app stores to verify ages – putting the onus on Apple and Google, instead of individual apps like Instagram, Snapchat and X, to do age checks.”
Which Meta has been pushing for over the last few years.
Back in 2023, Meta’s Global Head of Safety Antigone Davis proposed that the app stores take on a bigger role in keeping young kids out of adult-focused apps, or at the least, in ensuring that their parents are aware of such before they download them.
As per Davis:
“U.S. states are passing a patchwork of different laws, many of which require teens (of varying ages) to get their parent’s approval to use certain apps, and for everyone to verify their age to access them. Teens move interchangeably between many websites and apps, and social media laws that hold different platforms to different standards in different states will mean teens are inconsistently protected.”
The solution, according to Davis, and Meta, is for app stores to implement tighter controls and processes to stop teens from downloading apps without a parents’ approval.
The app stores already have user info, and parents are generally responsible for activating their child’s device. Implementing age restrictions at the app store level would make it much harder for teens to get access to adult-focused apps, with each individual app currently having to confirm user IDs themselves, on an individual basis.
“We support federal legislation that requires app stores to get parents’ approval whenever their teens under 16 download apps. With this solution, when a teen wants to download an app, app stores would be required to notify their parents, much like when parents are notified if their teen attempts to make a purchase. Parents can decide if they want to approve the download.”
So it’s no surprise that Meta has applauded Utah’s new bill, releasing this joint statement (with Snap Inc.):
“We applaud Governor Co and the State of Utah for being the first in the nation to empower parents and users with greater control over app teen downloads, and urge other states to consider this groundbreaking approach. Parents want a one-stop-shop to oversee and approve the many apps their teens want to download, and Utah has led the way in centralizing it within a device’s app store.This approach spares users from repeatedly submitting personal information to countless individual apps and online services.”
So is it a better solution?
Well, logically, it would appear so.
Again, right now, each individual app and developer has to come up with its own age verification and checking process, and implement such at scale, in order to stop teens from being able to access content that they shouldn’t be able to view.
That’s led to a range of different approaches, none of which have been overly effective.
For example, research conducted by Common Sense Media back in 2022 found that the daily average screen time for kids aged between 8 to 12 continues to increase year-over-year, with a significant portion of that time now being spent in social media apps, while TikTok has reported that around a third of its U.S. users are under 14, though many are not registered at that age.
It’s clear that many, many underage users are accessing social apps, and with each platform taking a different approach to age-checking, that also makes enforcement of any regulations and restrictions to combat such difficult.
Because how can you punish X, for example, for not being as good at keeping kids out as Meta? There has to be a baseline legal requirement, and detection process to enforce such, so that all businesses are being judged against the same criteria. Otherwise it could establish an unfair commercial advantage in the sector.
Some newer age-detection processes are showing promise, with Meta, for example, using third party video age-checking, which has a high accuracy rate. Though there are concerns about uploading video selfies of young users.
This is also, reportedly, the system that the Australian government is looking to implement as the standard to enforce that nation’s upcoming teen social media ban, which will bar people under 16 from accessing social apps (13 is the current lower threshold for most apps).
But that also means significant cost for the platforms, and enforced adoption of a third-party provider, which will then store at least some user data. And that’s only in one region.
App store centralization, using a one-time qualifier to register for all apps, via a system that already has all of your personal information, seems like a much better process in comparison.
Google and Apple, however, do not want to be the arbiters on this element, for fear of being held to account for any enforcement of age restrictions in future.
But they are best-placed. And in Utah at least, they’re going to have to undertake this responsibility.
It’ll be interesting to see how that actually works in the state, and whether this is first step in a broader rollout of this approach.
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