Your phone or computer may soon ask how old you are
California's Digital Age Assurance Act forces Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android to collect age brackets from January 2027, with open-source exemptions pending.
California's Digital Age Assurance Act, signed in October 2025, requires major operating systems to collect user age brackets (under 13, 13-15, 16-17, 18+) and share non-identifying age signals with app developers starting January 1, 2027, with existing setups complying by July 1, 2027. AB1856, passed in late August 2026, would exempt open-source operating systems under GPL, MIT, BSD, and Apache licenses and awaits the governor's signature. Colorado, Illinois, and New York have similar age assurance measures, and the EFF has criticized the law for privacy and censorship concerns.
- DAAA mandates OS-level age collection in California from January 1, 2027
- Four age brackets signal apps: under 13, 13-15, 16-17, 18+
- AB1856 would exempt open-source OSes under GPL, MIT, BSD, Apache licenses
- Colorado SB26-051 and Illinois passed similar age assurance laws
- EFF criticizes age verification as privacy-harmful outsourced censorship
- Products
- WindowsmacOSiOSAndroidGrapheneOS
- Organizations
- Electronic Frontier FoundationBuffy Wicks
- Countries
- United States
From the original article
3 min read at malwarebytes.com
California and Colorado will require operating systems to collect users’ ages, but open-source software like Linux may be exempt.
By @malwarebytes · malwarebytes.com
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