- The US Congress will debate the App Store Accountability Act on December 2
- Pinterest, Meta and X support the bill, but Apple and Google have concerns
- Congress is debating a total of 19 bills focusing on children’s online safety
Lawmakers around the world have been busy strengthening children’s online safety by 2025, and the United States is no different.
So far, US states have taken matters into their own hands — Missouri is the latest to enforce its age-verification law — with Congress lagging behind. Still, lawmakers are eager to catch up at the federal level and are set to debate a large set of proposals focused on child safety today.
Among these is the App Store Accountability Act (ASA) worries Apple and Google, despite the support of the likes of Meta, X and now Pinterest.
Like Utah, Texas and California, the bill was introduced in May by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rep. John James (R-MI), and seeks to shift responsibility onto the App Store’s providers. Under the legislation, Google and Apple will be responsible for providing safeguards for minors, including verifying their age in a privacy-preserving manner and restricting access to apps if they are deemed too young.
However, Apple and Google have expressed concern about the level of data sharing required by the ASA and similar laws. “These proposals introduce new risks to minors’ privacy without actually addressing the harms that inspire lawmakers to act,” Google wrote.
It’s also unclear how these requirements will hold up in court, as Texas’ app store age verification law (expected to expire in January 2026) is being challenged with two lawsuits.
What is certain is that if the ASA goes through, it will become significantly more difficult for people to use a virtual private network (VPN) or similar tools to protect their data and circumvent the rules.
19 child safety bills to be debated
The ASA is far from the only bill under consideration. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is hearing a total of 19 proposals on this topic today. These include another controversial bill, the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), after it made a comeback in Congress in May.
Experts at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have warned that this proposal – which would require online service providers to protect minors from a wide range of harms online – could end up making the internet worse for everyone.
“Legislators who support KOSA today are choosing to trust the current administration and future administrations to define what young people — and to some extent all of us — should be allowed to read online,” they wrote.
Another bill scheduled to be debated is the SCREEN Act, or shielding children’s retinas from violent online exposure. This follows similar rules implemented in some states and is aimed at introducing age verification measures for adult-only websites and apps.
While federal guidelines could resolve what experts have called a “state-by-state legal mess,” well-known issues surrounding people’s privacy, data security and free speech rights will remain. We will wait and see if the legislators manage to find the right balance, this time.
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