[MadScientist]

The government of California is implementing a law that requires operating system providers to implement some form of age verification into their account setup procedures.

Assembly Bill No. 1043 was approved by California governor Gavin Newsom in October of last year, and becomes active on January 1, 2027 (via The Lunduke Journal). The bill states, among other factors, that "An operating system provider shall do all of the following:"

"(1) Provide an accessible interface at account setup that requires an account holder to indicate the birth date, age, or both, of the user of that device for the purpose of providing a signal regarding the user’s age bracket to applications available in a covered application store.

"(2) Provide a developer who has requested a signal with respect to a particular user with a digital signal via a reasonably consistent real-time application programming interface that identifies, at a minimum, which of the following categories pertains to the user."

The categories are broken into four sections: users under 13 years of age, over 13 years of age under 16, at least 16 years of age and under 18, and "at least 18 years of age."

https://www.pcgamer.com/software/operati...unt-setup/

[Money-]

There are some country that implements this but its for social media due to too much violence and dark content to prevent kids from bla bla etc.

[Pr0m3th3us]

That. Is. Insane.

Wow when you think cali cant get any crazier. But just to be clear you can just enter a fake DOB right? lol....

[MadeByDemons]

Ah yes, I can't wait for sys admins to all of a sudden have 12 different systems logged in with their personal info or a gold disk of a DC stored with all their PII in a text file next to it because of this.

Also this "phoning home" shit is just another attempt at a clipper chip by people too uneducated to understand what they are legislating being manipulated by those too malicious to teach them.

[RiveR29]

I swear to god if I ever decide to move to the states. California, Washington, Minnesota and Florida are off the books. Ill never go there.

If I can I would possibly settle down to Montana, West-Virginia, Oregon, Wyoming, Colorado or Arizona. Maybe Texas but that is a hard maybe.

[CrusadersX]

My fear is that it won't just require each verification but a whole systemized government issued digitalized ID with face verification to log in to your computer

[Immortal]

I was just talking about this in convo last night. Absolutely wild and absurd. They already plan on amending the bill. / law

[aerozprit]

What happens to the privacy, if linux requires digital ID?

[MadScientist]

What happens to the privacy, if linux requires digital ID?

You just download the 'Not California Approved' copy instead, although might be screwed with commercial products running Linux and but non compliant copies online instead.

Havent followed any updates on this yet just waking up but I could see policy makers being daft enough to start requiring face and ID verification at some point >.<

[aerozprit]

You just download the 'Not California Approved' copy instead, although might be screwed with commercial products running Linux and but non compliant copies online instead.

Havent followed any updates on this yet just waking up but I could see policy makers being daft enough to start requiring face and ID verification at some point >.<

I think that on some point needing to ID into the internet is going to happen. Because ITS FOR OUR SAFETY. Probably there will still be alternative consumers. But needing to put my ID on the web is scary.