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Technology

Technology

The Big Story

Big Tech firms battle over kids' safety, app stores

The fight over a key internet protection for children is ramping up in Washington, where Big Tech companies are pinning the responsibility on each other as lawmakers push for stricter requirements.

© Getty Images

After months of action in the states, age verification legislation made its way to Congress last week, when Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rep. John James (R-Mich.) introduced a bill that would put the onus on app stores run by Apple and Google to verify all users’ ages.

“Kids cannot consent — and any company that exposes them to addictive or adult material should be held accountable,” James said, adding the bill “holds Big Tech companies to the same standard as local corner stores.”

The issue is uniquely pitting some of the country’s largest technology firms, including Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta, against other tech giants.

Meta is part of a new lobbying group, The Coalition for Competitive Mobile Experience, which launched in Washington last week with age verification on the app store as one of its main policy goals.

The coalition maintains app stores are best suited to handle age verification since they already have the age data, while Apple and Google argue the approach would still require sharing data with app makers.

Lee and James’ bill, titled the App Store Accountability Act, would be the first of its kind at the federal level. It would require app stores to determine a user's age “category,” which differentiates age groups younger than 18, and then send the data to app developers.

The bill resembles efforts underway in several U.S. states, including Lee’s home state of Utah — the first in the country to pass a law putting the responsibility on app stores. The Utah law is slated to take effect Wednesday.

More than a dozen states proposed similar bills this year.

Still, the proposal could face hurdles even with Big Tech critics in Congress.

“Age verification is largely ineffective,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told The Hill. “It is so easily worked around by young people, who frankly think it’s laughable that we would rely on age verification to protect them.”

Read more in a full report tomorrow morning at TheHill.com.

Welcome to The Hill’s Technology newsletter, we're Miranda Nazzaro and Julia Shapero — tracking the latest moves from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley.

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