Re: California law CA AB1043

On 2/27/26 8:46 AM, Jan Knepper wrote:
> I second this.
>
> I am no legal expert, but...
> What I understand from searching around a bit is that this purely 
> comes down to a question during installation/setup that asks for the 
> age or birth date of the user, from which an 'age bracket' is derived.
>
> Obviously, the 'age bracket' then supposed is to be applied to 
> 'access' (ports, media, Internet, etc).
>
> It seems purely a 'surface' check that is easily circumvented.
> Any juvenile, installing/setting up any OS that supports this, that 
> knows answering this question with actual age/birth date will limit 
> access, would be able to offset age/birth date, and completely 
> circumvent the system.
>
> It seems a typical State of California style solution that is going to 
> cost a lot of effort/money to implement while providing no true 
> solution to the problem of (failed) parental responsibility.
>
>
I'm trying to wrap my head around the checks at install time for app 
stores/pkg installation.  It makes an assumption we have something to 
compare it against.  I don't have ratings on ports. I have nothing to 
check against.  If someone is under 13 or 14-15 or whatever, there is no 
metadata to compare if this app is safe. What do we even do with that?  
It's not helpful.  In the case of a web browser asking the OS for the 
age, that's clear cut.  For the app store clauses, it's clearly written 
for mobile app stores or game consoles without regard for how other 
platforms work.

-- 
Lucas Holt
[email protected]
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