Your Computer May Soon Require an Age Check. And It Might Not Take ‘No’ for an Answer Age verification laws are moving beyond porn sites and social media. Soon, your operating system could be required to know how old you are. Age verification laws are no longer limited to porn sites. After more than two dozen US states passed laws targeting adult websites like PornHub—and Utah moved against VPN use—the next battleground is your operating system. Starting in 2027, California's Digital Age Assurance Act will require operating systems, including Windows, macOS, Android, ChromeOS, and Linux distributions, to ask users for their age during device setup and share an age range with apps. Depending on how future laws evolve, that process could eventually involve government IDs, credit cards, or biometric verification. Aaron Mackey, deputy legal director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, warns the effects won't stop at California’s borders. Because tech companies rarely build separate operating systems for different states, he says these systems will likely be rolled out "for everyone who uses [operating systems], including the billions of folks outside of California." Read more: pcmag.com/explainers/you…
