Re: California law CA AB1043

> On Feb 27, 2026, at 9:06 AM, Lucas Holt <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> 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.

You just do it once, at OS install time, treat it as all or nothing.  Nothing, no matter the port or base, is allowed for someone under whatever is the predetermined age.  All interactive user accounts added must also be under the age.

Not that I like that idea, but if forced, just take the simplest sledgehammer approach.

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DE