California lawmakers have retracted plans to broaden the state's age-gating law, A.B. 1043, which requires operating systems and app stores to collect and categorize users by age, raising significant privacy and security concerns. The revised bill, A.B. 1856, now excludes browsers and websites from the regulation, reducing potential harms to users and developers.
- California drops expansion of age-gating to browsers and websites
- Open-source operating systems gain exemption under new amendments
- Concerns remain over privacy, free speech, and invasive age verification
What happened
California Assembly Bill 1856, originally intended to expand the age-gating law A.B. 1043 to include websites and browsers, has been amended to remove these provisions. The bill now proceeds through the legislature without the previously problematic language that would have broadened the scope of age-verification requirements.
A.B. 1043, signed into law in 2025 and effective starting January 2027, requires operating systems and app stores to collect users' ages and categorize them into age brackets to restrict access accordingly. The law imposes steep penalties of up to $7,500 per affected minor on operating systems that fail to comply, creating strong incentives for invasive age verification practices.
Why it matters
The original expansion posed significant threats to digital rights, including user privacy, free speech, and data security. The requirements could have forced companies to implement intrusive identity checks, biometric scanning, and other invasive methods to verify users' ages, increasing the risk of data breaches and limiting lawful speech online.
The decision to exempt browsers, websites, and open-source operating systems from these regulations marks a crucial scaling back of the original proposal, reducing harm to users and developers. However, digital rights groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), maintain that the core A.B. 1043 law remains unconstitutional and represents a dangerous precedent for age verification on the internet.
What to watch next
Stakeholders are closely monitoring the progress of A.B. 1856 as it advances through the California legislature, particularly final amendments and potential compromises that could further affect online privacy and age verification mandates.
Digital rights advocates continue efforts to challenge and reform A.B. 1043, advocating for alternatives that protect age-appropriate access without compromising anonymity or collecting sensitive personal data. The broader national and international debate over mandatory age verification and internet regulation remains active and evolving.