Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year • Hacker News Board

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#521

Post by throwaway49841 » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 3:24 PM UTC

ChoGGi wrote: post #255

It's not like children can buy overpriced phones or tablets. You can force the stores to help setup up restrictions for their devices for parents that don't know how or want to. Then start doing massive fines and restrictions on websites or app stores that host unregulated apps. If they can afford to buy them on their own, good for them. You don't use age to decide what's appropriate; I don't mind if my kids see nake…

> actual amateur porn with a range of body shapes is okay

Please don't do this to your children. Exposing children to pornography is abuse, regardless of the body shape of the subjects.

An teenage cousin showed me pornographic images when I was a boy, maybe 6 but I am not sure. I was confused by all the body hair the women had. I became physically aroused, something I didn't understand at all -- I assumed it meant that I suddenly needed to pee. The images were of "normal" women but the experience was abuse.

My wife had a similar experience when an older family member was openly watching a pornographic video. She doesn't remember what it looked like as much as the feelings of confusion about her own body's response, which in her innocence she also interpreted as needing to pee. Both males and females are sensitive to this kind of sexual stimulation from a young age.

In human development has well-known progressions for the development of digestive, musculoskeletal, sexual systems. We don't give weaning babies steak. We know not to make elementary schoolers do dead-lifts or run marathons. And we know better than to sexually stimulate children with pornography.

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#522

Post by palata » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 3:30 PM UTC

MichaelZuo wrote: post #512

palata wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not entirely sure what you are trying to say, other than you don't really care as long as you are not the one who is marginalised. Anyway it's generally a tradeoff: is it worth doing it? By adding very strict age verification systems and marginalising people, do we make society globally better or not? Will those age verification systems work to prevent underage people from accessing the stuff we don't want them to ac…

Since my old reply was flagged, this now seems like coordinated trolling. I really doubt you are genuinely incapable of understanding what “regulated electricity utilities” or “expected to provide service” means.

I didn't downvote you, not sure what you are talking about.

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#523

Post by Ajedi32 » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 4:39 PM UTC

Aachen wrote: post #246

Ajedi32 wrote: post #211

Well, the API itself seems fairly well designed from a privacy perspective. It only shares age ranges, not specific ages, and only if you allow it. The data is also fuzzed to prevent an app from determining your exact birth date, and it's all tied in to the parental control system.[1] The problem remains though that, since the laws this feature was created to comply with put the onus on Google to verify the user's ag…

The API is tied to a Google account though. You can't simply install an app on Android and have Android tell it what the user's age is, it has to first have google maps, youtube, play services, etc. installed and you need to make an account and log in globally on your device before it can tell the app an age. I don't know that I'd call that a good design for an Android API

Yes, and as I said that's a problem with the laws, which "put the onus on Google to verify the user's age".

If it were legal for the device itself to somehow determine the user's age without involving Google at all, I agree that would be a much better design.

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#524

Post by MichaelZuo » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 4:47 PM UTC

palata wrote: post #522

MichaelZuo wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since my old reply was flagged, this now seems like coordinated trolling. I really doubt you are genuinely incapable of understanding what “regulated electricity utilities” or “expected to provide service” means.

I didn't downvote you, not sure what you are talking about.

Is this AI written?

I didn’t accuse you of downvoting. It’s literally not possible for HN users to downvote the comment they reply to.

Anyone with seemingly over 10k karma would know that.

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#525

Post by xinayder » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 5:19 PM UTC

amazingamazing wrote: post #71

xinayder wrote: post #11

Can't we build a gateway in the internet that detects if someone is a influential CEO or something and just bar access to the internet?

What does this have to do with age verification?

The billionaires are pushing for identifying kids online for whatever reason, saying it's to "protect the kids" when we don't need Orwellian-level of surveillance.

We should counteract this by forbidding internet access to billionaires, or restricting it so much, so they can stop playing with something they don't understand.

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#526

Post by aceazzameen » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 5:47 PM UTC

fn-mote wrote: post #272

izend wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you a parent? I have personally used the parental controls on Android, iOS and ChromeOS and to be honest they are terrible. Issues with syncing changes, the terrible UX for parental access control (iOS...), issues around audit/access logs, issues around prompting the parent for access. I am honestly shocked that Apple known for its polished experience hasn't been forced by angry parents. My daughter's school actu…

> my daughter was caught playing web games in class Hilarious to me. The biggest game of whack-a-mole ever. I would love to know if this lockdown was successful (and if so, how it worked). In my city, there is a district that is so “locked down” that the images from Wikipedia don’t even load. But guess what? Kids still find ways to play games.

This is definitely Google's fault. Google allows kids to make webpages at sites.google.com where they embed web games. And because teachers also host content on the same domain, IT will never block the entire domain. They might block a specific URL, but then the kids just spin up a new google site. It's only whack-a-mole because Google allows it.

This could be stopped instantly if student accounts had no write access to new pages at sites.google.com. It isn't worth the distractions nationwide. If it's an absolute must for a class somewhere, then provide teachers with an easy tool to whitelist their class for it.

Would some kids still find ways around that? Of course! And more power to the kids who figure it out. But right now it's too easy for kids to flood game content to their Chromebook peers.

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#527

Post by mapontosevenths » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 5:48 PM UTC

nathan_compton wrote: post #290

mapontosevenths wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reason the current system doesn't work when it comes to unfettered internet access is either that parents by and large don't actually agree with the threat assessment of said internet access for kids, or they ignore it because the consequences of doing so are disproportionately small. Sometimes parents know their children, and what's best for them, better than faceless politicians (who we've seen are often attr…

I sympathetic to this perspective, as a parent, but also, there are just a lot of kids out there with bad parents. My personal philosophy is that parents have a duty to raise their children but that duty is on behalf of the society into which the children will eventually enter. Consequently, a just society may sometimes impose itself on parental freedoms (in the case of neglect, for example) because, in the end, the…

I think that the individual does not raise children on behalf of society, I think that society raises children on behalf of the individual. I also think that when society fails to keep up it's end of the deal, the individual should have the right to walk away from it.

Your stance is also reasonable, and I understand it. I just happen to disagree with it at a pretty fundamental level.

> I don't know why Americans are so obsessed with freedom as if were the only social good that a society can pursue.

It's an interesting question isn't it? The balance between what is best for the individual, and what is best for society and who gets to decide exactly where the balance should be is probably one of the most fundamental problems that face humans.

Personally, I'm so far left that I've almost gone right. I think that others should be able to raise their children however they'd like unless it rises to the level of genuine violent abuse. Just making different moral, political, or lifestyle choices alone should never cost someone their right to parent.

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#528

Post by DSMan195276 » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 6:29 PM UTC

1dom wrote: post #516

DSMan195276 wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I might be being overly cynical here, but I think part of the problem is parents expect to give their kids the internet so they don't have to spend so much time/attention with them. > I think this means any solution which involves active parent participation is going to get shunned by a vocal subset. I don't think that's a fair assessment personally, rather you've missed a key detail that things are significantly m…

I don't mean to be confrontational, but the key detail you thought I missed, about it being complicated, was a fairly crucial part of my point that you've overlooked: My parents when I was young ended up having to figure out how to use digital cameras, scanners, printers, fax machines and then print, sign and sometimes even post off a letter for me to access one website which I wanted, which could take hours of their…

> Point being, the tools have always existed, and always felt inappropriate or convoluted, but my parents at least were happy to do it for their kids 20+ years ago. From what you're telling me, they're now a lot faster and easier to access and use.

No they're not, the systems that exist today often don't even work and there's no alternative of "just mail a letter to Microsoft and they'll sort it out for you".

"Faster" is also a frankly a silly point - it's not like your parents were waiting at the mailbox until the letter came in the mail, the important question is the amount of time actively spent dealing with these things.

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#529

Post by palata » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 7:42 PM UTC

MichaelZuo wrote: post #524

palata wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't downvote you, not sure what you are talking about.

Is this AI written? I didn’t accuse you of downvoting. It’s literally not possible for HN users to downvote the comment they reply to. Anyone with seemingly over 10k karma would know that.

I genuinely didn't know :-). I don't generally downvote comments I reply to. I don't downvote when I disagree, I downvote when I believe the comment is very low quality, in which case I don't engage at all.

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#530

Post by reorder9695 » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 8:06 PM UTC

infinitezest wrote: post #356

reorder9695 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me to fully drop google someone needs to create something compatible with Android Auto in my car, it doesn't sound like a big deal but that's a big enough thing for me to need it now.

What's your main use case? Maps?

Pretty much, my car doesn't have navigation built in but supports android auto. I've tried a phone mount before but the experience is so much worse when it's not integrated with the car (volume of announcements and music can't be done independently, can't switch what music/podcast app's playing without grabbing my phone, etc) that I just went back to using it.