That should be read as "when the application is (downloaded and launched)".

If it were meant as "when the application is downloaded and every time the application is launched" it would probably have been written as "when the application is downloaded or launched".

Also, there would be no point in mentioning downloads if that was a separate check because the app developer cannot request the signal upon download because their app is not running then.

The most reasonable conclusion is that the app must check the first time it is launched.

You are probably mixing up this bill with the California law, which its title kind of suggests it would be similar to but it isn't really.

Those were all almost completely useless because they were before the text of the bill was released.

That's pretty much the California law.

> Based on the few snippets quoted in the article, I think as written this bill gets closer to a good, privacy-preserving, non-authoritarian version of "age verification" than any of the attempts so far.

I think you are mixing up the bill this article is covering and the bill that California passed.

The California law requires:

• When setting up an account for a child who is the primary user of a device the OS lets the parent specify the child's age or birthday.

• The OS to provide an API that apps can use to find out if the current user is a child and if so their age range (under 13, 13 but under 16, 16 but under 18, 18 or older).

The bill in Congress requires setting age information for all users. It does not specify how that age information is to be obtained, leaving such details to regulations that the FTC will write.

A "normal consumer", at least in most of the US, can take their iPhone to an Apple store, a Best Buy, and probably several small phone repair services that have small stores or kiosks in a nearby mall or inside a Walmart.

From an environmental point of view it doesn't matter if you do the repair yourself or you have it done by someone else.

> From an environmental point of view it doesn't matter if you do the repair yourself or you have it done by someone else.

The added cost and friction will de facto make it less repairable.

There are several different approaches to trying to keep children from things that are probably bad for them on the internet that have been proposed or passed as laws.

1. Requiring sites in various categories (porn, social media) to make sure they aren't serving children, without specifying how they are to do that.

2. Similar to #1, but specifying specific means the sites must use. They are often pretty bad from a potential privacy perspective because they often specify uploading copies of passports or driver's licenses or other things that could be very harmful to you if they leaked. These laws do at least often require the sites to delete those documents. With #1 sites often ask for the same documents but aren't required to delete them.

3. Like #2 but includes among the allowed means of verification some that don't give the site copies of your sensitive documents.

4. Ones that require operating systems on devices whose primary user is a child to let the parents set the age of the child when the child's account is being set up, and to provide an API that apps can query to find out if the current user is a child.

Whenever any of those are discussed here, or whenever any of the other approaches being developed such as those that allow binding a digital copy of your government ID to a hardware security module you have (such as on a smartphone) and to use that to demonstrate age range without disclosing anything else (Google and Apple have these, and the EU is planning on such a system) is discussed here, 95% of the commenters comment as if it was a #2 type of system.

So might as well discuss this one now. The discussion won't be any different once the text comes out.

4 is a more interesting pitch, but without knowing if the law requires the OS check the age somehow it's hard to say. I also think ideally it shouldn't be an actual age for privacy reasons? Ideally it should be a kind of adult / not adult flag that's on or off, presumably tied to other parental controls.

So if the legislation leans that way it would be interesting to discuss that part in particular.

The main type 4 law right now is the one California passed and some others copied.

It requires that the parent be able to enter an age or birthdate. The API that the OS must provide to apps is required to let apps ask for age ranges, with these ranges required: [0, 13), [13, 16), [16, 18), [18, ∞).

The California bill is mostly fine, and just needs some tweaks. It is way narrower than 99% of the people who comment on it think it is.

From what little that has actually been disclosed about the federal bill it sounds like it too is taking a parental control approach, but it also sounds like it might be requiring the OS to actually verify the age.

The big question is what does that mean? If it just means the OS has to ask the parents for the age it may be similar to the California law and might just take some tweaking. If it means the OS has to be provided actual proof then it is quite different and much more problematic.

Where does this bill say it applies in that situation?

What we do now works fine. Numerous studies, including by people that had a strong interest in wanting to find problems, have found that the amount of ineligible voters that slip through is insignificant.

Voter registration records are generally public and are scrutinized by partisan organizations that want to try to disqualify voters that they think will vote for a different party.

The voter ID laws Republicans are trying to pass would stop at most a negligible amount on ineligible voters, but would also disenfranchise several million citizens, most of whom are poor and/or elderly and/or minorities.

If Republicans would propose a voter ID law that also includes funding to provide free IDs to every citizen who does not have one (including covering the costs of obtaining the necessary documentation for those IDs), then most people objecting to the current proposals would drop their objections.

As someone who would vote for voter ID, I would also vote just as fast to provide tax payer funded help so any US citizen can vote, regardless of financial situation.

> Environmental activity against meat has led a lot of people (26% of Americans) to believe that there is a push to ban red meat

I'd guess that has more to do with something like half a dozen different Fox hosts saying a few years ago that Biden's Inflation Reduction Act would prohibit Americans from eating hamburger more than once a month.