Congress is considering a new act that replaces active parenting with a broken digital wall.
The House Committee on Energy and Commerce recently advanced the App Store Accountability Act (ASAA), a bill that proposes that Google Play and the Apple App Store use commercially reasonable methods to verify users’ ages to increase children’s safety online. The bill’s sponsor, Chairman Brett Guthrie (R-KY), has argued that age verification empowers parents.
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The chairman is wrong. The ASAA would enforce existing parental controls at the expense of data security and children’s access to important information. By mandating data collection and parental approval, the act would deter parents from engaging in their children’s digital experience. As a result, parents will have a false sense of security when their children are online and take a less active approach to digital parenting and protection.
THE KIDS ACT TREATS EVERYONE LIKE A KID
The act would require app stores to request and store ID verification from every user, regardless of age, and to share that information with app developers. Parents are right to balk at the idea of taking such a risk. For those who opt out of sharing their sensitive data, app stores will automatically restrict their children’s access to apps and information, ultimately stunting children’s ability to develop strong digital habits.
Despite vast bureaucratic capabilities in handling data and personal information, companies can still falter, putting parents at significant risk of being targeted. The factsheet produced by the lawmakers claims that data collection can be done in a secure way.
But Spain’s data protection regulator fined Yoti, a trusted industry leader, more than $1 million for violations of biometric data handling rules. Discord admitted that more than 70,000 IDs were compromised in its efforts to comply with the United Kingdom’s stringent Online Safety Act. The huge bank of information collected by app stores will become a prime target for hackers.
The government wants to demand that all apps be blocked until parents give their consent, whether parents agree with the policy or not. Only 34% of parents agree it will keep kids safe. Seventy percent of parents also worry that requiring parental consent for every app will only restrict access to important information. Parents are rightfully enraged. The proposed legislation enforces the use of app blocking, which is already available to parents.
Parents willing to take the risk inherent with ID verification will then face the bureaucratic hassle of approving each app their child wants to download, even the calculator. The burdensome requirement may lead to consent fatigue. Some parents may mindlessly allow all apps, creating an environment without supervision, while others may not allow any apps. The heavy restriction may only push children to riskier alternatives.
There is already an abundance of tools available that allow parents to take an approach that best fits their values and teaches their children to have good digital habits. Parents should be empowered to use them as they see fit. As Cato Institute scholar Jennifer Huddleston put it best: “Keeping children safe online is a problem that is best solved by parents, not policymakers.”
Even if age verification can be done successfully, it pushes consumers, in this case, young children, some likely to be vulnerable, to darker corners of the internet with even less parental controls and a higher degree of danger. It is already happening in places such as Australia and Louisiana.
The legislation also carries a huge flaw. By proposing to force age verification through the app store only, the bill leaves a loophole for users to access the same information via a browser without any of the government-imposed hurdles. The blatant loophole shows that the act gives parents a false sense of security, pretending that children will have restricted access, while in reality, children can simply use a browser.
When consent fatigue rapidly accumulates and access to relatively harmless places on the internet is restricted, kids will quickly exploit loopholes to access content via web browsers, where they are more likely to stumble into dangerous content.
CONGRESS WANTS TO REGULATE VIDEO GAMES. THE INDUSTRY BEAT THEM TO IT.
The App Store Accountability Act claims to make the internet safer for children. What it will really do is deter parents from appropriately engaging in their kids’ internet use. Families would be better off using the available tools to guide and educate their children online.
Governments should not ignore or try to replace parents in the pursuit of their child’s safety. Protecting children online is a noble cause, but this bill is not the way forward.
Oscar Gill-Lewis is a political commentator with Young Voices and Correspondent Program Manager at Speak Freely Magazine. He writes for Speak Freely and on Substack, and his articles have appeared in Conservative Home, The Daily Express, and Comment Central.
