California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act into law on Thursday, implementing some of the strictest privacy requirements for children in the United States.
The Design Code was passed by the state legislature in late August and lays out rules for prioritizing child safety in product design. This includes restricting an app’s ability to collect data on anyone 18 or younger and requiring apps to implement their highest privacy standards for children and teenagers. The law will also require tech companies to incorporate technology to verify a user’s age before allowing access. The law will go into effect on June 2024.
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“We’re taking aggressive action in California to protect the health and wellbeing of our kids,” said Newsom in a press release.
The bill implements restrictions on top of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, which protects the privacy of all users 13 or younger. The rules are scheduled to take effect in 2024. It’s unclear if tech companies will change their policies across the United States to accommodate the design code or if they will keep it location-locked.
The Design Code is heavily inspired by the United Kingdom’s Age-Appropriate Design Code, which the country implemented in 2021 and has similar privacy restrictions for youth in the U.K.
Tech industry groups are displeased with the legislation’s passing due to its implications for speech and innovation. “Although [the Design Code’s] motive is well-meaning, many of its chosen means are unconstitutional and risk unintended consequences,” NetChoice Counsel Chris Marchese said in a statement. “The law violates the First Amendment by chilling constitutionally protected speech and infringing on the editorial rights of websites, platforms, and apps of all sizes and ideologies.”
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“The bill is so vaguely and broadly written that it will almost certainly lead to widespread use of invasive age verification techniques that subject children (and everyone else) to more surveillance while claiming to protect their privacy,” argued Fight For The Future Director Evan Greer. “Some have even proposed that biometric face scans could be required to access websites or online services under this bill. Requiring age verification also makes it nearly impossible to use online services anonymously, which threatens freedom of expression, particularly for marginalized communities, human rights activists, whistleblowers, and journalists.”
Newsom signed the law after approving AB 587, a law that requires tech companies to post their content moderation rules online.
