I believe the California law (which has passed) requires operating systems to collect the DoB or Age of the user when setting up a user account, and then expose an API that shares the users age range (not their actual age or birthdate) when requested by an application.
It does not require the OS to actually verify the age, collect government IDs, or any other data.
The intention, I think, is to put the responsibility for communicating the users age on the OS, instead of having each application or service do their own age verification (by scanning IDs, requesting user data, etc). Since it’s set on the machine, a parent can set it once for their kid when setting up the device.
Or I guess the kid can set it if they're smart enough to reinstall the OS or spawn a VM. I'm sure there will be online resources to help them that kids know how to share
Yeah if you have admin access to your device and know what you’re doing it’s basically a non-issue. I’m guessing a savvy high schooler can change their age bracket easily.
If you want to give a young child a laptop or computer though, it maybe helps keep them away from objectionable content.
The California law says nothing about verification or immutability, what if someone made a mistake when putting in their age? Why do we need to hide it? Better to just let the user change this at will.
Yeah the most likely thing (for the California law, at least) is that compliant OS's expose a form at account creation where you input a birthdate or age, and have either a CLI/file/setting where you can change the birthdate or age with admin permissions. No verification is needed
It does not require the OS to actually verify the age, collect government IDs, or any other data.
The intention, I think, is to put the responsibility for communicating the users age on the OS, instead of having each application or service do their own age verification (by scanning IDs, requesting user data, etc). Since it’s set on the machine, a parent can set it once for their kid when setting up the device.