[a2128]

This is not the bill you're hoping for:

1. The text implies software should get access to your date of birth, rather than talking about age groups. If it becomes the case that websites can get your precise date of birth, this will be the ultimate fingerprinting vector that will put the fight for online privacy dead in the water.

2. The text talks about "verifying" dates of birth. This can only imply the involvement of face scanning or ID checking and third parties.

3. The text itself is very vague about details such as verifying, because it leaves many details entirely to the FTC, which recently announced they will stop enforcing privacy protections under COPPA for companies violating it to perform age verification of children[0]. So you can fully expect that if we are putting computing entirely in the hands of the current commission we will be probably screwed.

The text itself is less than 4 pages. I recommend reading it for yourself[1].

[0] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2026/02/...

[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/8250...

[Ajedi32]

Ah, I see your point. I could see a way to interpret the language in the bill to mean exactly what I was thinking[1], but it's pretty vague and I could also see a way to interpret it that would seriously hurt privacy. If it's just down to the FTC (i.e. the whims of whoever the president happens to be at any given time) to resolve those ambiguities then that's not something I could support.

[1]: It says the parents verify the user's date of birth, which could just mean they get to say "yes, my kid is 12", and "a system to allow an app developer to access any information as is necessary" could just mean "is user over 18" if that's all that's necessary to comply with the FTC regulations.

[a2128]

The bill mentions a parent verifying a child's age, but the bill also later mentions the issue of "verify the date of birth of a parent or legal guardian" which I can only interpret as a face scan or ID check of the parent