Age Verification and Parental Consent for Apps

The American Council supports SB175 and urges every Ohio legislator to vote yes. This bill addresses a gap that families feel every day: when a child downloads an application, neither the parent nor the developer has a reliable, standardized way to know the child's age. SB175 closes that gap by requiring operating system providers to collect a user's date of birth or age at account setup and transmit age bracket data to developers through a secure API whenever an application is downloaded, launched, or significantly updated. That simple, consistent signal changes the entire landscape of how apps can serve Ohio families.

Critically, the bill is built with privacy at its center. The age bracket data transmitted is not personal data as the bill defines it. It indicates only one of four broad age ranges: under 13, 13 to 15, 16 to 17, or 18 and older. Operating system providers and developers alike are prohibited from requesting more information than the minimum necessary to comply, and age signal information cannot be shared with third parties for purposes beyond what the bill requires. The bill also explicitly states that nothing in it requires the collection of additional personal information beyond what is necessary. Parents and guardians gain a meaningful new protection without surrendering their family's private data to a wider audience.

The bill also reflects genuine accountability. Developers must treat the operating system's age signal as the primary indicator of a user's age, but they may not willfully disregard their own clear and convincing internal evidence that a user is younger than the signal suggests. The attorney general holds sole enforcement authority, with civil penalties reaching up to $2,500 per affected child for negligent violations and up to $7,500 per affected child for purposeful violations, with all penalties flowing into the consumer protection enforcement fund. These are real consequences that create real incentives for responsible behavior.

The bill's fairness provisions deserve recognition as well. Operating system providers must apply the same restrictions to their own applications that they impose on third-party applications, and they are prohibited from using compliance data to compete against or disadvantage third parties. Ohio antitrust law is fully preserved. Broadband and telecommunications services are excluded from the bill's scope. A good-faith safe harbor protects operating system providers and covered application stores from liability when they have made a genuine effort to comply. The framework is designed to work, not to punish good actors.

We believe Ohio has a responsibility to give parents the tools they need to protect their children online, and we believe that responsibility is a matter of conscience, not just policy. SB175 is a measured, enforceable, privacy-respecting bill that fulfills that responsibility. The American Council calls on every member of the Ohio General Assembly to pass SB175 and send it to the Governor's desk without delay.