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Colorado and California age verification bills exempt open source operating systems
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this post was submitted on 25 May 2026
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It's not going to be putting a number into a box. That is abusable and is functionally no different than what we already have now. It will be proper age verification similar to what social media is already starting to use.
This is also not about "child safety" either. There are already tools for providing parental controls. Improving and making these options more accessible should be the priority, not enforcing it upon everyone. That is why we are calling it out for what it is, thinly veiled invasion of our privacy.
But that's literally what these systems are. There is more than one form of age verification. The type we're discussing here literally is just "enter your name in a box." It's important not to muddy the waters. If you don't know what you're opposing and choosing your battles carefully, you can't effectively fight infringement on privacy. And I really don't see anything wrong with a law that just says, "every OS needs to have a feature that lets parents self-report age on a child's account."
Yes, there are other forms of digital id laws. But we're talking specifically about OS-level ones. This literally just be a more effective parental control, giving people more control over their own PCs, not less.
Again, try to focus on what specifically we are talking about, not similar-sounding but unrelated technologies.