California decides that account creation - including Linux - needs age verification

WSS

A new California law says all operating systems, including Linux, need to have some form of age verification at account setup

The government of California is implementing a law that requires operating system providers to implement some form of age verification into their account setup procedures.

Assembly Bill No. 1043 was approved by California governor Gavin Newsom in October of last year, and becomes active on January 1, 2027 (via The Lunduke Journal). The bill states, among other factors, that "An operating system provider shall do all of the following:"

"(1) Provide an accessible interface at account setup that requires an account holder to indicate the birth date, age, or both, of the user of that device for the purpose of providing a signal regarding the user’s age bracket to applications available in a covered application store.

"(2) Provide a developer who has requested a signal with respect to a particular user with a digital signal via a reasonably consistent real-time application programming interface that identifies, at a minimum, which of the following categories pertains to the user."

The categories are broken into four sections: users under 13 years of age, over 13 years of age under 16, at least 16 years of age and under 18, and "at least 18 years of age."

https://www.pcgamer.com/software/operating-systems/a-new-california-law-says-all-operating-systems-including-linux-need-to-have-some-form-of-age-verification-at-account-setup/

lol. lmao, even.

Ympker

I guess, it's time to download existing LTS versions now.

host_c

I did not see that coming........

AnthonySmith

What......

I have to be in a simulation, this can't be real.

kako1talk

Good luck to the California government trying to enforce a KYC check on a headless Debian instance deployed via an API script.

Politicians legislating technology is always an absolute comedy show. I can't wait for the new Linux kernel patch that requires us to drink a verification can before getting sudo privileges. 😂

jarland

The only people selling Linux will probably implement it, and the ones giving it away will tell them to eat their ass 🤣

bikegremlin

cmeerw

@WSS said: need to have some form of age verification at account setup
@WSS said: an account holder to indicate the birth date, age, or both, of the user of that device

Where does it say age verification?

WSS

@cmeerw said:

@WSS said: need to have some form of age verification at account setup
@WSS said: an account holder to indicate the birth date, age, or both, of the user of that device

Where does it say age verification?

Let me google that for you.

https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB1043/id/3269704

AnthonySmith

@WSS said:

@cmeerw said:

@WSS said: need to have some form of age verification at account setup
@WSS said: an account holder to indicate the birth date, age, or both, of the user of that device

Where does it say age verification?

Let me google that for you.

https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB1043/id/3269704

You can google it for me, but you cant understand it for me, so, jokes on you!