New App Store Accountability Act Mandates Age Verification and Parental Consent for Minors on Major Platforms

The new App Store Accountability Act aims to fundamentally change how digital marketplaces—like the ones run by Apple and Google—handle their youngest users. This bill targets any app store operating in the U.S. with more than 5 million users, officially calling them "Covered App Store Providers." A year after it becomes law (Sec. 11), these giants must verify user ages and obtain verifiable parental consent before anyone under 18 can download or buy anything.

The New Gatekeepers: Age Checks and Parent Accounts

If you’re a parent, this bill is designed to give you back some control. App stores will be required to ask for a user’s age immediately upon account creation and use a “commercially available method” to categorize them into age groups: Young Child (under 13), Child (13-15), Teenager (16-17), or Adult (18+). If the user is a minor, the account must be linked to a “Parental Account,” and the store must get verifiable permission before that minor can make purchases or downloads (Sec. 3). This is a huge shift, moving the burden of age verification and consent from the developer onto the platform itself. For developers, this means no more guessing games; they must use the “signal” provided by the app store to know a user’s age category and consent status (Sec. 4).

Data on Lockdown: What They Know and What They Can’t Do

This Act is very strict about the new age data it forces platforms to collect. App stores are only allowed to collect, process, and store the minimum personal data necessary for age verification and compliance (Sec. 3). For app developers, the rules are even tighter: they can only use this age category data to enforce age restrictions, ensure legal compliance, and implement age-appropriate default settings. Crucially, developers are banned from enforcing any contract or terms of service against a minor unless they have confirmation from the app store that verifiable parental consent was given (Sec. 4). This could change how in-app purchase disputes are handled, giving parents a stronger legal footing if their child racked up a bill without permission.

The Safe Harbor and the Regulatory Reach

One of the most interesting parts of this bill is the “safe harbor” provision (Sec. 8). App developers are protected from liability under this Act if they can prove they honestly relied on the age verification information provided by the covered app store. This essentially means the app store is taking on the primary legal risk for accurate age verification. If the store messes up the age signal, the developer who relied on it is shielded. This could streamline compliance for thousands of developers, but it also places immense pressure on the platforms to get their verification systems absolutely right.

Enforcement falls to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which will treat any violation as an unfair or deceptive business practice (Sec. 6). The FTC must also set up a formal compliance certification process, reviewing app store policies within 30 days of submission (Sec. 5). Furthermore, state Attorneys General are empowered to sue violators in federal court on behalf of their residents, though they must notify the FTC first (Sec. 7). This dual enforcement structure gives the law some serious teeth.

The Bigger Picture: Preemption and the Unregulated

While the protections for minors are significant, the bill contains a sweeping preemption clause (Sec. 9). This means that once the federal rules in this Act take effect, no state or local government can pass any law that conflicts with it. While this creates uniform standards for big tech, it could also wipe out existing, more restrictive state-level privacy laws aimed at protecting children online. Separately, the Act only applies to app stores with over 5 million U.S. users. This leaves smaller, often niche, app distribution platforms completely unregulated by these new, strict child protection standards, creating a potential loophole or an uneven regulatory playing field (Sec. 2).