Parents Over Platforms Act Mandates Age Verification for App Stores and Bans Personalized Ads for Minors

The “Parents Over Platforms Act” is a major legislative push to change how app stores and app developers interact with kids online. Simply put, this bill aims to make age verification standard practice and give parents more control over what their kids access, while also pulling the plug on targeted advertising aimed at minors. The legislation is set to take effect within 24 months of enactment.

The New Age Requirement: Friction for Everyone

Under Title I, the bill mandates that Application Distribution Providers—think Apple’s App Store or Google Play—must ask all new account holders to declare their age. They also have to use “commercially reasonable efforts” to figure out if you’re a minor (under 18) or an adult. If you’re a developer of a “Covered Application”—an app that offers a different experience for adults versus minors (like having adult-only features or content)—you’re also required to use commercially reasonable efforts to determine a user’s age category.

What does “commercially reasonable efforts” actually mean? That’s the million-dollar question, and the bill doesn't define it clearly. For you, the user, this means more friction during sign-up. Whether you’re a 40-year-old trying to download a new game or a 16-year-old trying to access social media, you’ll likely face mandatory age checks. If the system gets it wrong, you might find yourself wrongly categorized and blocked from content, even though the bill says you can request an update to your age category (Sec. 101).

Putting the Brakes on Personalized Ads for Kids

One of the most concrete wins for privacy in this bill is the ban on Personalized Advertising directed at minors. Personalized Advertising is defined as ads selected based on your online activity over time and across different, non-affiliated apps and websites. This means if your kid is categorized as a minor, developers cannot track their activity across the internet to build a profile and serve them targeted ads for things like toys or games (Sec. 102). They can still serve contextual ads—like showing an ad for a shovel on an app about gardening—but the creepy, data-driven tracking stops.

For parents, the bill requires app stores to give you the ability to prevent your child’s account from getting or using a developer’s covered app entirely. App stores must also provide developers with a way to share information about their app's parental controls (Sec. 102).

The Catch: Preemption and Liability Shields

While the bill sounds great for child safety, it also introduces significant regulatory changes that could weaken consumer protection efforts elsewhere. Section 203 explicitly preempts—or overrides—any state or local laws, rules, or regulations related to the provisions of this Act. This means if your state has a stronger law about age verification or data privacy for kids, this federal bill could wipe it out, replacing it with the federal standard. Since the federal standard relies on the vague “commercially reasonable efforts,” this preemption could actually lower the bar for consumer protection in states that have been proactive.

Furthermore, Title II offers broad liability protection for Application Distribution Providers and Developers who make a “good faith effort” to comply. They are protected even if the age signal they provide is wrong, or if a developer misidentifies their app as not being a “Covered Application” (Sec. 201). This shield is designed to encourage compliance, but it also means platforms might be incentivized to meet the minimum standard rather than investing in truly robust safety measures, knowing they have a legal safety net.