MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN – JULY 15: U.S. Rep John James (R-MI) speaks on stage on the first day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 15, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Delegates, politicians, and the Republican faithful are in Milwaukee for the annual convention, concluding with former President Donald Trump accepting his party’s presidential nomination. The RNC takes place from July 15-18. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
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Did you ever use a fake ID to buy liquor, or get into a bar? The question is worth thinking about as Rep. John James’s “App Store Accountability Act” continues to make its way through Congress.
James’s bill requires corporations like Apple and Google to treat their various products like the proverbial liquor store or bar, essentially carding users to make sure they’re of the proper age (18 and above) should they attempt to add or download various apps. Hopefully readers can see not just the absurdity of the legislation, but also its superfluous and dangerous qualities.
First the absurdity. Carding at liquor stores and bars has long been much more than unequal to the desires of young people. And these are physical locations staffed by live humans.
How then, should Google and Apple be expected to police users seeking access to content that may or may not threaten them from afar? Instead of being asked in person to proffer identification, young people will be asked to tell the truth (or not) online? To say that age would be quite a bit more difficult to police in a distant verification sense is to state the obvious, at which point the legislation brought forth by James and Sen. Mike Lee forces Apple and Google to take on liability for the proverbial card check that no entity could ever credibly police. No thanks.
Which brings us to the good news: James and Lee’s legislation is wholly superfluous. For instance, Google offers Family Link to parents that gives them control over screen time, app downloads, purchase approval, and all manner of other ways for parents to ensure that their children are seeing what they want them to, and when.
As for Apple, in addition to providing location-based alerts that tell parents when their kids arrive at school and when they come home, Apple’s various products give parents full veto power over apps that their children can add. Without asking for specific birthdates, Apple requires age-ranges for kids when parents set up their devices so that Apple can alert parents when their children are merely attempting to add age-inappropriate material.
Not only can screen time be strictly controlled in a minutes and hours sense, parents also have control over precisely the kind of content that their children can see before school, during, and after, along with control of iPhone and iPad use in total so that, for instance, kids aren’t sneaking screen time when they should be sleeping, or perhaps when their parents are.
What about communication? If kids want to add a classmate to connect with on Apple devices, parents get approval first. And if an approved individual sends a nude photo, or is sent one by a child on an Apple device, the image is blurred whether going out or coming in. Arguably most important of all considering the ingenuity of young people, if they spy the passcode of a parent, the parent is informed right away.
Crucial about what’s been written here is that it reveals just how much both Google and Apple have gone well beyond the legislation of James and Lee to protect parents and children alike. So, while the App Store Accountability Act is surely superfluous thanks to Apple and Google, it’s still dangerous.
That’s because laws, while they’re frequently unequal to protecting those who might require it, their greatest source of their harm can arguably be found in them giving parents a false sense of security. In this case, the false sense applies to children about whom parents must be vigilant.
Which is why the App Store Accountability Act requires much more thought, and debate. That it’s not necessary doesn’t mean it couldn’t bring a lot of harm to young people.