According to The Verge, a new federal bill called the App Store Accountability Act (ASA) is gaining momentum in Congress as part of a larger kids’ online safety package. Introduced by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rep. John James (R-MI), the bill would mandate that mobile app stores like Apple’s App Store and Google Play verify a user’s age and then pass that information to apps upon download. The approach, already passed in states like Utah and Texas, just picked up a key industry supporter in Pinterest, with companies like Meta, Snap, and X expressing broad support. A version in Texas is set to take effect in January but is currently facing a legal challenge from the tech industry association CCIA. The bill is scheduled for a hearing before a powerful House committee this week.
The App Store Shield
Here’s the thing: this bill is a clever bit of political and logistical jujitsu. For years, every individual app developer—from a giant like Meta to a tiny startup—has faced the looming threat of being forced to build their own clunky, expensive, and privacy-invasive age verification system. That’s a nightmare. But this bill? It effectively makes Apple and Google the nation’s digital bouncers. They do the verification once at the device level, and then beam that “age signal” to every app. For the apps, it’s a huge relief. It takes the heat off them. And for users, the argument is you only have to prove your age once to the app store, not fifty times to fifty different apps. It sounds simpler. But is it safer? That’s the billion-dollar question.
A Strange Political Bedfellows
The support lineup is fascinating. You’ve got Senator Mike Lee, a conservative who opposed the other big kids’ safety bill, KOSA, over fears of “political censorship.” He’s worried KOSA’s “duty of care” could be used to target content related to gender dysphoria. Yet he’s full-steam-ahead on this app store verification bill. And then you have progressive groups who also oppose KOSA, fearing it could censor transgender resources online. So on KOSA, hard-right and far-left activists find some common ground. But on this app store bill, Lee is arm-in-arm with Meta and Pinterest. It’s a weird Venn diagram where “let’s not censor speech” and “let’s make verification someone else’s problem” overlap perfectly. Lee himself seems amused by it, noting that no one has said, “Well, if Meta supports this kind of effort, then I can’t possibly.”
The Privacy and Legal Landmines
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This idea is already on shaky ground. The Texas law, which is very similar, is being sued by the CCIA right now. Their argument? That walling off legal speech based on age is a First Amendment violation. The Supreme Court has okayed age gates for porn sites, but gating *every* app is uncharted territory. Then there’s the privacy elephant in the room. The UK’s attempt at broad age verification has been a mess, with people finding workarounds and freaking out about handing over IDs or facial scans. Moving it to the app store might centralize the risk, but as experts say, it doesn’t eliminate it. What’s Apple or Google supposed to do? Scan your driver’s license? That’s a massive new database of sensitive info just waiting to be breached. California’s version, which Google actually supports, is weaker—it just asks users to self-report their birthdate on the device. But that’s easily circumvented by any kid who can lie.
Why Big Tech Might Accept It
So why would any of these companies get on board? Two words: patchwork nightmare. States are already passing different versions—Utah, Texas, California all have their own twists. For a global company, that’s an operational hellscape. A single federal standard, even a restrictive one, starts to look attractive because it’s predictable. Pinterest’s CEO said exactly that, calling the need “urgent.” Apple and Google are the big holdouts, mainly because they hate the idea of being forced to share user data with developers. But the pressure is building. Lee says he’d welcome their support, and points to recent Apple parental controls as a good sign. He’s confident his bill is constitutional and sees “no reason to delay.” Basically, the industry might be calculating that this specific devil they know is better than fifty different devils in fifty state legislatures. The race is now on: will the courts in Texas kill this model, or will Congress cement it into federal law first?
