Apple launches 'age assurance' tech as US states mull social media and other app

28/2/2025 6:19

Apple on Thursday said it

will introduce a way for parents to share the age of a child

with app developers without revealing sensitive information such

as birthdays or government identification numbers.



The move comes as a number of U.S. state and federal

lawmakers consider age-verification laws for social media and

other apps.



States, such as Utah and South Carolina, are currently

debating laws that would require app store operators such as

Apple and Alphabet's Google to check the ages of

users.



That has set up a conflict in the tech industry over which

party should be responsible for checking ages for users under 18

- app stores, or each individual app.



Meta, for instance, has long argued in favor of

legislation requiring app stores to check ages when a child

downloads an app.



Apple on Thursday said it does not want to be responsible

for collecting sensitive data for those age verifications.



"While only a fraction of apps on the App Store may require

age verification, all users would have to hand over their

sensitive personally identifying information to us—regardless of

whether they actually want to use one of these limited set of

apps," Apple wrote in a whitepaper on its website.



As an alternative, Apple said it will roll out what it calls

"age assurance." Using it, parents will be able to input a

child's age when setting up a child's account.



The parent can then choose to allow the child to share what

Apple calls a "declared age range" - rather than an exact

birthday or other identifying information - with third-party app

developers. The parent will have the ability to turn off

age-range sharing.



"This protects privacy by keeping parents in control of

their kids’ sensitive personal information, while minimizing the

amount of information that is shared with third parties," Apple

said in its paper.



In a statement, Stephanie Otway, a Meta spokeswoman, said

the Apple technology is "a positive first step" but it still

requires the child to share age range data with the developer,

which will make it more difficult for Meta to put to use.



"Parents tell us they want to have the final say over the

apps their teens use, and that’s why we support legislation that

requires app stores to verify a child’s age and get a parent’s

approval before their child downloads an app,” Otway said.