On Tuesday, Joe Hack, Grindr’s leader of global government affairs, revealed on its blog that the application supports the Republican-sponsored App Store Accountability Act.
This legislation is part of a collection of online safety measures being examined by U.S. legislators this week, including the controversial Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which critics claim could hinder free speech by censoring online LGBTQ content.
The App Store Accountability Act requires age verification at the App Store level. Providers such as Apple and Google must confirm a user’s “age category” using personal information like an email address or Social Security number. Minors will need parental approval before downloading applications or making in-app purchases.
Put forth in May by Michigan Representative John James in the House and Utah Senator Mike Lee in the Senate, both from the Republican Party, the legislation aims to improve child safety online. This year, Lee also reintroduced the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act, which aims to redefine “obscene” materials, which could lead to a ban on pornography.
Concerning the App Store Accountability Act, Grindr’s Hack mentioned, “We support Rep. John James’s App Store Accountability Act since it bolsters” measures to prevent minors from accessing the app, including age gating, device-level restrictions, human oversight, AI resources, and collaborations with child safety organizations.
“The legislation establishes a unified, secure age-verification system at the app-store level and enables developers to receive a verified age indication. This method, embraced by nearly 90% of parents, is more secure and consistent than necessitating users to confirm their age individually across numerous apps,” Hack continued.
“In contrast, the UK and EU are trending toward fragmented regulations that mandate adults to disclose sensitive personal data to thousands of applications, resulting in unnecessary privacy and safety threats,” Hack emphasized. This pertains to the UK’s Online Safety Act, which obligates visitors of sites featuring adult content to submit personal details such as identification or a facial scan.
Recently, free speech and child safety advocates informed Mashable that device-level filtering is the favored approach for age verification, as it circumvents repetitive data checks for website access. One example is California’s AB 1043, which mandates that operating systems request an age or birth date during installation, generating a signal of a user’s age range to convey to applications (but not websites). AB 1043 will take effect in 2027.