California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash
Key takeaways
- When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.
- The law sought to shift online age verification away from individual websites and apps and down to the operating-system level instead.
- Under the original law, operating systems would be required to request a user s age or birth date during device setup, then expose an age bracket signal to apps and app stores.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here s how it works.
(Image credit: Getty Images) Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Email Share this article 4 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter California lawmakers may be backing away from a controversial age-verification requirement bill that alarmed Linux and open-source developers earlier this year, after a new amendment bill proposed exempting most open-source operating systems from the state s upcoming Digital Age Assurance Act. In practice, that would likely exempt most mainstream Linux distributions — including Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, Arch Linux, and Mint — from compliance requirements scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2027.
Assembly Bill 1856 (AB 1856), currently moving through California s legislature ahead of committee reviews in June, would amend the state s earlier age-assurance law by excluding software distributed under licenses that allow users to copy, redistribute, and modify the software.