We’re used to websites asking us to confirm that we’re over 18. But soon, your Mac, PC, tablet, or phone could pose a similar question before you’ve even finished setting it up. Hooray for more admin!
More specifically, in the US, California and Colorado have both passed laws requiring operating systems to collect the age of a device’s primary user, then make an age bracket available to apps. The changes could affect Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and ChromeOS, with California’s rules arriving first on 1 January 2027.
Before you start digging out your passport – or angrily eyeing up Linux – the reality is a little less dramatic than it sounds. Here’s what is changing and what you can do about it.
How the age checks work
California’s Digital Age Assurance Act requires operating systems with an account setup process to ask an account holder for the device user’s date of birth, age, or both. The operating system must then be able to provide apps with one of four age brackets: under 13, 13-15, 16-17, or 18 and over.
Apps are required to request that signal when they are downloaded and launched. Once a developer receives it, they are then considered to know the user’s age range and must use that information to comply with relevant laws.
The idea is to help apps apply age-appropriate restrictions without each one collecting and storing your birthday separately. It could affect access to mature content, social features, in-app purchases, and other experiences intended for adults.
The requirement applies to new account setups from 1 January 2027. Devices set up before then must offer a way to supply the information by 1 July 2027. Colorado has enacted a similar law, although it does not take effect until 1 July 2028. Both cover phones and tablets as well as computers.
Age brackets and ID verification
California’s law requires an account holder to enter an age or date of birth, but it does not demand a driving licence, passport, credit card, or facial scan as proof. For now, the process is closer to entering a birthday during setup than passing a formal identity check.
The resulting bracket is classed as non-personally identifiable data. Operating-system providers must send only the minimum information required, and cannot share the signal for unrelated purposes.
People could plainly enter a false age, leaving open the possibility that stronger checks will follow through future legislation or individual companies’ policies. That is not, however, what California’s current law requires.
Microsoft is already preparing the foundations, so to speak. Its upcoming Windows 11 Age APIs will let registered apps request a user’s age range and learn whether it has been independently verified, without receiving an exact age or date of birth.
Microsoft’s five brackets differ slightly from California’s four: under 10, 10-12, 13-15, 16-17, and 18+. The APIs are not active yet, but Microsoft says that they are due to be enabled in a future release later in 2026. They require Windows 11 and a signed-in Microsoft account.
Privacy concerns and exemptions
Sharing a broad age range is more private than giving every app your birthday or repeatedly uploading ID. Even so, digital-rights groups are uneasy about making age assurance part of the operating system.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation argues that California is shifting responsibility for online age gates onto operating systems and app developers. There are also questions about what this infrastructure could be used for in future, along with the risk that mistakes restrict legitimate users.
Shared computers are another complication. A family PC, school computer, or tablet may be used by people in several age groups. California’s law says that companies aren’t liable when someone other than the person associated with the age signal uses a shared device, but that doesn’t seem to solve the underlying mismatch.
Open-source developers have objected too, as small, volunteer-run projects can’t necessarily build the same compliance systems as titans Microsoft, Apple, or Google. California lawmakers have also now passed an amendment that would exempt operating systems distributed under licences that let people copy, modify, and redistribute the software. At the time of writing, it has reached the governor but has not yet been signed into law. Colorado’s law already includes an equivalent exemption.
What happens next
There’s nothing you need to do just yet. California’s requirements don’t kick in till 2027, Colorado follows in 2028, and operating-system providers have not shown exactly how every prompt will work. Moving to an exempt Linux distribution could eventually avoid the requirement, of course, but that is a fairly drastic response to entering a birthday, and individual distributions may still support age signals voluntarily. For what it’s worth, I’ve been toying with trying Linux regardless, so there’s no harm in a little OS exploration.
These are state laws, so they don’t directly apply to the rest of the US or elsewhere. For now, at least. Who knows what the future will bring?
Until then, though – don’t panic! Your computer isn’t about to lock you out until you produce ID. But when the time does come, at least you’ll be more prepared than most.
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