Everyone wants to protect children and teens online and make sure they engage with age -appropriate content, but how it is done matters. There are a number of rapidly moving legislative suggestions pushed by Meta and other companies in an attempt to read their own responsibility for keeping children securing app stores. These proposals introduce new risks to minor privacy without actually tackling the damage that are inspiring legislators to act. Google proposes a more comprehensive regulatory framework that shares the responsibility between app stores and developers and protects children’s privacy and parents’ decision -making rights.
Where the current legislative proposals come to a short
An example of regarding legislation is Utah’s App Store responsibility law. The bill requires app stores to share if a user is a child or teenager with all app developers (effectively millions of individual companies) without custody or rules for how the information is used. It increases real privacy and security risks, such as the potential of bad actors to sell the data or use them for other dishonest purposes.
This level of data sharing is not necessary – a weather app does not need to know if a user is a child. In contrast, an app on social media has to make significant decisions about age-passing content and features. As written, however, the bill helps social media companies avoid this responsibility despite the fact that apps are only one of many ways in which children can access these platforms. And by requiring app stores to get custody of each app download, it dictates how parents oversee their children and potentially cut off teens from digital services such as educational or navigation apps.
A legislative framework that better protects the children
In contrast, we are focused on solutions that require appropriate user consent and minimize data exposure. Our legislative framework that we will share with legislators as we continue to engage in this question, app shops have certainly delivered industrial registration insurance only to developers who actually need them – and ensure that this information is used responsibly. Here are more details:
- Privacy Preserving Age signal shared only With consent: Some legislation, including Utah Bill, require app stores to send age information to all developers without the permission of the user or their parents. In our suggestions, only developers that create apps that may be risky for minors are requesting industrial standard age signals from app stores, and the information is only shared with the permission of a user (or their parent). By simply sharing with developers who need the information to provide age-passing experiences, and only share the smallest amount of data needed to provide an age signal, it reduces the risk of sensitive information sharing broadly.
- Appropriate security measures within apps: Under our suggestion, an age signal helps a developer to understand whether a user is an adult or minor – the developer is then responsible for using the appropriate security and privacy protection. For example, an app developer may filter certain types of content, introduce to take a break reminders or offer different privacy settings when they know a user can be minor. Because developers know their apps best, they are best placed to determine when and where an age sport can be advantageous for their users, and it can develop over time, which is another reason why a one-size that suits all approach does not adequately protect children.
- Responsible use of age signals: Some regulatory proposals create new child security risks because they do not establish any protective frames against developers who are abusing an age signal. Our suggestions help ensure that all age signals are used responsibly with clear consequences for developers who violate users’ confidence. For example, it protects from a developer who incorrectly accesses or shares the age signal.
- No ads Personalization to minors: Alongside any age assurance proposal, we support the ban on personal advertisements targeting users under the age of 18 as an industry standard. At Google, this is a practice we have long rejected. It’s time for other companies to follow.
- Centralized Parental Control: When we recognize that parents sometimes feel overwhelmed by parental control across different apps, our suggestions would provide a centralized dashboard for parents to manage their children’s online activities across different apps in one place and for developers easy to integrate with.
Google has demonstrated our commitment to do our part to keep the kids secure online. We are ready to build on this work and will continue to engage in legislators and developers on how to move this regulatory framework for age insurance forward.