Conservatives Unveil Parental Rights App Store Age Verification Bill

Conservatives in late November introduced legislation aimed at protecting children from lewd or sexual content on app stores.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rep. John James (R-MI) introduced the App Store Accountability Act, a bill that aims to provide parents with effective tools to protect their children. The legislation would allow parents to sue big tech platforms if they believe their child has been exposed to harmful material.

“We need them to know they’ll go bankrupt if they victimize kids,” Lee said in a statement in late November.

The App Store Accountability Act would also protect big tech platforms from legal claims if they took steps to help parents protect their children from harmful content, which includes:

• Age verification using secure age category data
• Parental oversight of app usage, downloads, purchases
• Accurate app age rating displays

To protect children’s privacy the bill bars the selling of age category data.

Lee said in a statement in November that Americans can no longer wait for big corporations to be “moral” and stop the children from being exposed to harmful content:

I am proud to introduce S.5364, the App Store Accountability Act, to keep kids safe from exploitation online. Too many companies profit from adult content reaching children, and it’s going to stop. First, this bill creates a private right of action for parents and guardians against app stores that expose their children to pornographic content and extreme violence. That means these companies can be sued. App stores can protect themselves from liability by enforcing age verification and parental controls. We have the technology to ensure age-verification without ending anonymity online or endangering First Amendment rights, and we should use it. Younger and younger children are seeing sexual and violent content online through a variety of apps. If we want to stop this vicious trend, we can’t rely on big corporations to be “moral.” We need them to know they’ll go bankrupt if they victimize kids. The App Store Accountability Act tells them.

During a hearing in September, James discussed the need for app store age verification, likening it to having to show identification to purchase alcohol or tobacco.

“When a person walks into a convenience store, we require that store to check ID when they purchase cigarettes, or alcohol, or lottery tickets. We also hold the store liable when kids access those products improperly, not necessarily the suppliers of the product,” the Michigan Republican remarked.

During a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing, James referred to Google and Apple as a “duopoly” controlling the most dominant app stores. He added that his and Lee’s proposal would protect privacy and not create an onerous burden for app developers to verify the age of their users.

“Because Apple and Google already have the ages of their users, app users would not need to provide more personal information to these apps like Instagram or Snap to verify their ages,” James noted. “Indeed, all the app store provider would need is to send a signal to developers when they suspect a child is using their app or service without burdening the user by requiring more personal data. All Apple or Google would have to do is give the developer a thumbs up or a thumbs down.”

The legislation will likely face significant opposition from big tech platforms such as Apple. The Wall Street Journal reported in September that Apple has threatened states that have considered similar age verification proposals with lawsuits and hired lobbyists to kill these bills.

In contrast, Lee and James’s legislation will likely receive the backing of many conservative and other groups, such as the Heritage Foundation, Institute for Family Studies, Protect Young Eyes, and the National Center for Sexual Exploitation, which have praised proposals for app store age verification.

Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on X @SeanMoran3.