this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2025
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AB-1043 "Age verification signals: software applications and online services."

Text https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1043

Other info https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1043

California AB 1043 signed. Mandatory os-level, device-level, app store, and even developer-required age verification for all computing devices.

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[–] Botzo@lemmy.world 13 points 3 weeks ago

Yes, you are missing things.

How does this work with virtual machines that have service account "users" that I deploy?

The definition of application is so broad that it seems to cover any kind of software, even if it does not actually interact with a user, but merely provides system functionality (like your network device discovery daemon e.g. bonjour/avahi, or device drivers) just because you can download it.

Any software you can retrieve from the Internet and "launch" is required to collect user age data. Like your graphics card settings app, your PDF reader, a calculator. I can't figure out what they're supposed to do with it though, so it's a lot of work for no reason.

WTF is "launch" supposed to mean? Install? Open?

I guess every little toy app I put on GitHub is now going to be subject to this? If I fork an old application that doesn't provide the interface, am I now responsible for doing so even if I only use it on my own devices?

What about software developer by people that aren't in California and don't want to be bothered? Can I now not use their calculator or spreadsheet or text editor applications because they don't collect age verification signals?

2027 is way too soon because there's no way all the Operating Systems have decided on the shapes of their signals, so I can't even start figuring out how to implement in any of the 5 programming languages I have used to develop apps.