California Children’s Safety Bill Would Further Complicate the Regulatory Landscape for Businesses, Says ITIF

WASHINGTON—Following the California State Legislature’s passage of the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the leading think tank for science and technology policy, issued the following statement from Senior Policy Analyst Ashley Johnson:

California has once again passed an overly broad technology law that will negatively impact businesses across the country by subjecting them to a set of costly requirements.

The California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act requires companies to act in the “best interests” of children—an incredibly broad and ill-defined requirement. If signed into law, the bill may lead online services to set up age-verification systems, requiring all users to submit their own personal data to prove they are 18 or older to access websites, apps, and online services. This type of age-verification system would severely undermine user privacy and anonymity online.

If Governor Newsom signs this bill into law, it would be California’s third major privacy law in the last four years. Lawmakers need to stop rewriting the rules of the road, and states should stop dictating national technology policy. Congress should get ahead of the growing patchwork of state privacy laws by passing comprehensive federal privacy legislation that preempts state laws and creates a unified national standard. In the long run, this would save billions in duplicative compliance costs and offer all Americans the same protections.