A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification • Hacker News Board

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#501

Post by webstrand » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 5:37 AM UTC

charonn0 wrote: post #434

Skimming the actual text of the law[1], I don't see anything particularly objectionable. Basically it requires a toggle when creating/editing a local user account that signals "this user is/is not a child". Applications could then tailor their content for child/not child audiences. Which isn't to suggest that it's a good law, just not really "age verification". [1]: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextCl…

The liability exemption is a moving target

> good faith effort to comply with this title, taking into consideration available technology and any reasonable technical limitations or outages

could easily be read as meaning "facial recognition technology exists and is available, not using it is a business decision, failure to use it removes the good faith protection".

If the lawmakers didn't intend this, then they didn't need to add all the wiggle words that'll let the courts expand the scope of this law.

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#502

Post by juris » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 5:49 AM UTC

flenserboy wrote: post #475

jmward01 wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" It applies to operating systems that work with associated app stores on general purpose computers or mobile phones or game consoles. That’s it" Everything is a general purpose computer. Just look at how many things have been made to run doom. I haven't read the law specifically but if it actually does say this then that language is useless and means practically everything.

vague laws are put in place so that they can be used selectively to punish particular victims while letting friends through the nets

until you root out their friends and maliciously develop app stores for their products, then install them multiple billions of times on a docker and let them rack up charges ;) doom can run on -anything-

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#503

Post by roywiggins » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 5:52 AM UTC

dataflow wrote: post #477

bmitch3020 wrote: post #290

Reaction 1: how would this even work with embedded systems that have no UI to input this data? Reaction 2: it's open source, make the lawmakers do submit the changes. Reaction 3: how would this ever be enforced? Would they outlaw downloading distributions, or even older versions of distributions? When there's no exchange of money, a law like this is seems like it would be suppression of free speech. Reaction 4: Someo…

> how would this even work with embedded systems that have no UI to input this data? Doesn't the bill explain all this pretty clearly? https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm... >> An operating system provider shall [...] provide an accessible interface at account setup that requires an account holder to indicate the birth date, age, or both, of the user [...] >> “Operating system provider” means…

> general-purpose computing device

This term doesn't seem defined in the law at all. How general is general?

Graphing calculators that support apps and Python? Of course, they don't usually have "accounts" either. But to a technologist it's a "general purpose computer" insofar as it can run new code that the user loads into it, it can definitely run games that it didn't come from the factory with, etc. It's a tiny multipurpose computing device.

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#504

Post by v_chip_saves » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 5:54 AM UTC

Remember in that South Park episode where Cartman had a V-Chip[0] installed in his head and he would get shocked if he said big floppy donkey dick?

In all honesty the V-Chip was meant to protect children.

Age verification and identity assurance[1] is meant to reduce online banking fraud and combat terrorism/espionage.

Whats next outlawing encryption with Clipper Chip[2] 2.0 and saying its to save the whales? I guess we have QUIC and other DRM tech to ruin our day so it doesn't even matter.

I would prefer we drop the think of the children[3] charade and act like adults and get serious about online crime/fraud/terrorism and maximizing online banking.

The biggest problem with this thought domain is that the internet is global and we are thinking at regional, national, and state levels. For so many years everyone has heard complaints about the great firewall of China only to build our own? I guess we have no other choice since bad apples spoil the bunch[4].

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-chip [1]https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-3/sp800-63-3.html [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children [4]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_apples

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#505

Post by skissane » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 6:03 AM UTC

SllX wrote: post #124

fangpenlin wrote: post #67

There's an obvious theme with lawmakers in California—they pass laws to regulate things they have zero clue about, add them to their achievement page, cheer for themselves, and declare, "There! I've made the world a better place." There are just too many examples. For instance: - Microstamping requirements for guns—printing a unique barcode on every bullet casing (Glock gen3 cannot be retired, thus, the auto-mode swi…

The incentives are all wrong. You can serve up to 6 two-year terms in the Assembly or up to 3 four-year terms in the Senate, but regardless of which combination you do, nobody in the California legislature can serve more than 12 years combined across both Houses of the legislature. So we don’t have professional legislatures with long-term electability incentives or leadership goals, we have a resumé-building exercise…

It is interesting that this is a mainstream existing thing in the US (at the state level), but more of a fringe proposal in the rest of the English-speaking world.

I think the answer may be that the difference in political systems (parliamentary vs presidential) and party systems (less two-party but with greater party discipline) solves many of the problems term limits are intended to solve in completely different ways.

Maybe a better answer would be for US states to adopt the parliamentary system? Although there is some debate about what the "republican form of government" clause means, it arguably doesn't rule out parliamentary republicanism, and Luther v Borden (1849) ruled the clause wasn't justiciable anyway. Added to that, the widespread practice in first half of the 19th century, in which governors were elected by state legislatures, was de facto the parliamentary system. I don't think there is any federal constitutional obstacle to trying this – it is just a political culture issue, it currently sits outside the state constitutional Overton window.

While you could adopt the Australia/Canada model of a figurehead state governor/lieutenant governor with a state premier, I think just having a premier but calling them "the governor" would be more feasible

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#506

Post by heavyset_go » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 6:07 AM UTC

martin-t wrote: post #216

SllX wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The incentives are all wrong. You can serve up to 6 two-year terms in the Assembly or up to 3 four-year terms in the Senate, but regardless of which combination you do, nobody in the California legislature can serve more than 12 years combined across both Houses of the legislature. So we don’t have professional legislatures with long-term electability incentives or leadership goals, we have a resumé-building exercise…

> professional legislatures That should not be a profession. Decisions should be made by people who are the most informed about the subject matter. By definition you cannot have someone who is the most informed about everything.

Perhaps our republic should be run by philosopher kings

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#507

Post by juris » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 6:11 AM UTC

Little bit picking at straws but I sure would love to find some way to punt this law. Medtronic has an insulin delivery solution which involves the distribution of a custom Android phone with a closed source app. Other fields in medicine do this as well as a matter of course, so that they can guarantee clinical operation on that particular device (rather than risk app operation on Android device fragmentation) and get OK’d by the FDA. The FDA testing process can take upwards of 4 years, and is usually cleared for -specific- operating system versions (which, by the end of testing, can be very old).

I wonder: since that operating system needs to attest and (vaguely) eventually report an age and other identifiers to a government API and app developers, will that report violate HIPAA?

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#508

Post by K0balt » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 6:17 AM UTC

juris wrote: post #502

flenserboy wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

vague laws are put in place so that they can be used selectively to punish particular victims while letting friends through the nets

until you root out their friends and maliciously develop app stores for their products, then install them multiple billions of times on a docker and let them rack up charges ;) doom can run on -anything-

I like the way you think.

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#509

Post by K0balt » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 6:20 AM UTC

lol. The best kind of legislation (rated by entertainment value) is always written by people with no real understanding of the subject being governed.

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#510

Post by juris » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 6:20 AM UTC

filleduchaos wrote: post #409

MangoCoffee wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this good at all for a free society? You are basically making a "what about the children?" argument. its the parent job to protect their children. why should anyone suffer this b.s.?

How is it bad for a free society?

not to be flippant, i am answering your question with the seriousness it deserves:

it is because any government regulation over user identifiers in an operating system (and left to grow and fester according to political wont) will chill free speech (code, data) and assembly (the ability to share code and data with others unsupervised).