A new kind of age verification drama has popped and this time it’s in the state of California, US. A newly passed law now requires every operating system to have mandatory age verification for main users at the time of account creation.
This Digital Age Assurance Act was passed a year ago, but the good thing is that it will come into effect by next year. But regardless, it brings back the tension around actively having to think about privacy concerns when using major operating systems.
Similar laws and implementations have already been coming under fire from the public for jeopardizing the safety of identity in the UK government. Recently, Discord also came into the center of attention and criticism for going into ties with institutions that deal with government surveillance.
Details of what this new law states
According to The Lunduke Journal, this California State Act, dubbed the Assembly Bill number 1043, will come into effect on January 1, 2027, and was officially approved by Governor Gavin Newsom in October 2025.
Even though major Operating Systems such as Windows and MacOS provide clauses where users have to input their age during setting up for first time installation. This new law will mandate that a separate new Application Programming Interface be implemented in order to structure users into separate age groups.
These groups include ages under 13, followed by ages between 13 and 16, between 16 and 18, and above. The collected data will then be segmented and used for the verification of accessible content for the California-based user, according to their age.
Beyond privacy concerns, this new law brought about another point of dread among other communities, such as Linux users who generally don’t adhere to the commonly used operating systems.
Practically impossible to implement the law on Linux
The law makes sure that developers and Linux distros that aren’t centralized are fined over $2,500 for non-compliance. The penalty can reportedly even stack up to $7,500, which has put the Linux community on the internet in a state of confusion.
Users on social media quickly took to pointing out how the law does not make sense for an OS like Linux since it “doesn’t even have online accounts.”
Most users are of the opinion that nothing is going to happen out of the passing of this bill because not everything can be efficiently mandated when dealing with operating systems like Linux. It’s like “proposing faster-than-light public transport,” according to another user.
Only time will tell how the state will be able to implement such a law with full measures, as it is practically impossible in non-commercial OS environments. But this whole ordeal does hit home the lingering thought of how the government constantly wants to implement surveillance over people’s online lives.
